Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Russian political dissident Alexei Navalny, was unable to attend her husband’s funeral, which took place in Moscow on Friday. She navalnaya has been living in Berlin, Germany for some years, and returning to Russia would in all likelihood risk her arrest, especially due to the direct accusations made against Vladimir Putin in the European Parliament hearing. At the end of the ceremony, however, Navalnaya published a farewell message to her husband on her social profiles. It is a short text accompanied by a video that collects some moments of their life together. In one passage Navalnaya wrote:
I don’t know how to live without you, but I will try to do it so that from above you are happy for me and proud of me. I don’t know if I can stand it or not, but I’ll try.
Navalnaya, 47, met Navalny in a tourist village in Turkey in 1998: he was then a lawyer specializing in corporate law. The two married in 2000, had their first daughter Dasha in 2001 and their second, Zakhar, in 2008. For many years she had refused any personal political role, saying she only wanted to take care of the family, but she had always remained close to her husband . After Navalny’s death, which occurred in a maximum security prison in Siberia, she instead announced that she wanted to “continue fighting”, taking up his political legacy. Even in her farewell message, when she said she aspired to make him “proud”, she seems to want to reiterate this desire.
Lyosha, thank you for 26 years of absolute happiness. Yes, even over the last three years of happiness. For love, for always supporting me, for making me laugh even from prison, for the fact that you always thought about me.
I don’t know how to live without you, but I will try so that you are up there… pic.twitter.com/ybF31AuD47
— Yulia Navalnaya (@yulia_navalnaya) March 1, 2024
Navalnaya then thanked her husband for “26 years of absolute happiness”, saying that even the last three, in which Navalny was in prison, had been happy: “Thank you for the love, thank you for the fact that you always supported me, because you made me laugh even from prison, because you always thought of me.”
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