Yulia Navalnaya

Yulia Borisovna Navalnaya (née Abrosimova; Russian: Юлия Борисовна Навальная, née Абросимова, IPA: [ˈjʉlʲɪjə nɐˈvalʲnəjə]; born 24 July 1976) is a Russian public figure and economist. The widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, she has been described in media as the "first lady" of the Russian opposition. After her husband's death, Navalnaya announced that she would continue his work. As of 1 July 2024, Navalnaya is the chairperson of the Human Rights Foundation.

Navalnaya was born Yulia Borisovna Abrosimova on 24 July 1976 in Moscow, Soviet Union, in the family of scientist Boris Aleksandrovich Abrosimov (1952–1996) and Alla Vladimirovna Abrosimova. Her mother worked for the Ministry of Light Industry; her parents divorced when Navalnaya was in fifth grade, and her mother married a second time, to an employee of the USSR State Planning Committee. In 2020, journalist Oleg Kashin alleged that Navalnaya's father was Boris Borisovich Abrosimov, then serving as secretary of the Russian embassy in Great Britain, associated with the special services, and that her aunt was Elena Borisovna Abrosimova, one of the authors of the Russian constitution. In response, Navalny published a death certificate for his father-in-law, dated 1996.

Navalnaya graduated from the Faculty of International Economic Relations of the Plekhanov Russian Economic Academy. She later served an internship abroad and undertook postgraduate studies.

She worked for some time at a Moscow bank.

Involvement in Alexei Navalny's political career

After 2007, Alexei Navalny gained fame in Russia as a blogger and opposition politician. Navalnaya became the first secretary and assistant to her husband. The family's life became noticeably more public, so that Navalnaya was in the spotlight as the "first lady of the Russian opposition". Observers note that she never tried to position herself as an independent figure: Navalnaya always behaves like a devoted wife and companion ("the Decembrist's wife"), ready for harsh statements and decisive actions if her husband needs it, but not directly related to politics. She spoke at a number of rallies; she called the head of the National Guard of Russia Viktor Zolotov, who in September 2018 challenged Alexei Navalny to a "duel", as a "thief, coward and impudent bandit".

Navalnaya attracted close public attention in the late summer and early fall of 2020, when her husband was urgently hospitalised in Omsk following a suspected poisoning. She demanded that Navalny be released to Germany for treatment, and even turned directly to Russian president Vladimir Putin. After German experts confirmed Navalny's poisoning, Russian physician Leonid Roshal said that no poisonous substance was found in Navalny's samples in Russia and suggested creating a Russian-German team on this matter. Navalnaya accused him of acting "not as a doctor, but as the voice of the state." She followed her husband to Berlin, was next to him at the Charité hospital, and Navalny later posted a message "Yulia, you saved me". Novaya Gazeta and its audience named Navalnaya its 2020 Hero of the Year. Key European media outlets closely followed her activity and quoted her posts on social networks.

In January 2021, Navalnaya returned to Russia with her husband. After Navalny was detained at the border control, she made a statement that the arrest and the closure of the airport in Vnukovo were a manifestation of the Russian authorities' fear of Navalny. "Alexei said that he is not afraid", she said. "— And I'm not afraid either. And I urge you all not to be afraid." Later, Navalnaya accused the security officials of "persecut[ing] [her] as the wife of an enemy of the people." She wrote on Instagram: "The Year of '37 has come, and we did not notice." On 21 January, Navalnaya announced that she would go attend the 2021 Russian protests to demand the release of her husband. On 23 January, she was detained, but released the same evening.

Post-Navalny political career

On 1 July 2024, Navalnaya was announced as the chairperson of Human Rights Foundation, succeeding Garry Kasparov.

In the summer of 1998, while on vacation in Turkey, Navalnaya met Alexei Navalny, a lawyer, also a resident of Moscow. In 2000, she and Navalny were married. She gave birth to a daughter Daria (born 2001) and a son Zakhar (born 2008). She helped her husband's parents in their business related to basket weaving. After 2007, Navalnaya did not officially work anywhere, calling herself "the main one in matters of everyday life and raising children". In 2000, Navalnaya, together with her husband, joined the Yabloko party, which she left in May 2011.

On 16 February 2024, the Russian prison service announced that her husband had died in prison in Yamalo-Nenets, Alexei is suspected to have been tortured and suspected by his supporters and Western world leaders to have been murdered by prison officials on the eve of him being freed in a prison swap with a German prisoner. Navalny was incarcerated at the IK-3 penal colony north of the Arctic Circle at the time of his death. Navalnaya, who had been attending the Munich Security Conference, subsequently gave a speech in which she stated she was not sure if the reports were true, but commented that if her husband had died, that Putin and his allies "will be brought to justice".

Possible political future

In 2015, Navalnaya was ranked 67th in the top hundred most influential women in Russia by Echo of Moscow. After Alexei Navalny received a suspended sentence, the opinion was expressed that Navalnaya could nominate herself for the presidency instead of him. According to Russian public figure Ksenia Sobchak, in 2018 she offered this option to Navalny, but he rejected it saying "votes are not handed over".

In September 2020, after the poisoning of Navalny, opinions began to appear that Navalnaya was beginning to play an independent political role and might become the "Russian Tsikhanouskaya" — the leader of the entire opposition. Political analyst Konstantin Kalachev said that Navalnaya's role has changed: "From the wife of a politician, she is herself becoming a politician"; "she has charisma and charm, and can easily replace her husband if necessary". Political strategist Abbas Gallyamov compared Navalnaya to Corazon Aquino, the wife of the main opposition leader in the Philippines who opposed the regime of Ferdinand Marcos, the dictator that ruled the Philippines for twenty years. There are also opinions that such a turn of events is unlikely.

In 2020 Russian writer Dmitry Bykov said that Navalnaya reminded him of the heroine of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya: she "faces circumstances stronger than her, but some miracle helps her to defeat the world's evil."

In January 2021, the pro-Kremlin channel Tsargrad TV threatened to publish intimate files of Alexei Navalny unless Navalnaya promised "not to become Tsikhanouskaya in Russia" and "not to play political games".

After her husband's death in February 2024, Yulia published a video online stating that she plans on continuing her husband's political work and asked Russians to rally around her as they did around her husband, saying: "I will continue Alexei Navalny's work … I want to live in a free Russia, I want to build a free Russia." On 28 February 2024, Navalnaya addressed the European Parliament after being invited by EP president Roberta Metsola. During her speech she accused Vladimir Putin of having orchestrated her husband's murder and said that European leaders need to "stop being boring" and innovate if they want to defeat Putin.

In April 2024, Time Magazine listed her as one of the 100 most influential persons of 2024.

On June 3, 2024 she received the Human Rights Prize from Oslo Freedom Forum on behalf of her late husband. In her speech, she said that "I would wish that this prize was not necessary. But dictators around the world continue killing freedom fighters".