Russia Issues Arrest Warrant To Widow Of Alexei Navalny, Yulia Navalnaya (image@yulia_navalnaya)

Russia issued an arrest warrant for Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Alexei Navalny. Yulia is a leading dissident living in exile, and imposed a two-month detention order or grounds that she participated in an “extremist” group. The warrant was issued in absentia by a Moscow court.

The warrant came five months after her husband Alexei died in a Russian Arctic penal colony. Yulia held Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, responsible for her husband’s death.

The “extremist” label is applied routinely to dissident or independent civic groups by courts, which typically carry out the wishes of the Kremlin in political cases.

After her husband’s death, Yulia has lived in an undisclosed location outside Russia, with their two children. After the arrest warrant was issued, she took to her X account and asked her supporters not to be distracted by the court order against her, and to focus on the broader campaign against Putin.

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“When you write about this, please don’t forget to write the main thing: Vladimir Putin is a murderer and a war criminal”.

“His place is in prison, and not somewhere in The Hague, in a cosy cell with a TV, but in Russia – in the same (penal) colony and the same 2 by 3 metre cell in which he killed Alexei.

Alexei Navalny was serving a 19-year prison sentence in the Russian Arctic for his leading role in opposition to Putin, when he fell violently ill on a Russian internal flight, as a result of poisoning with the nerve agent novichok in 2020. He was evacuated to Germany for emergency medical care and recovered. On 17 January 2021, Navalny returned to Russia by plane from Germany and was detained on landing in Moscow.

Within three days after his death, Yulia took up the mantle of leadership. She broadcasted a nine-minute long video message vowing to continue her husband’s resistance of Putin’s dictatorial rule.

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“I will continue Alexei Navalny’s work … I want to live in a free Russia, I want to build a free Russia. I call on you to stand with me. To share not only grief and endless pain … I ask you to share with me the rage. The fury, anger, hatred for those who dare to kill our future”, she told in the video message.

After taking up the opposition leadership, Yulia has met with a succession of leaders, including US President Joe Biden. Last week, the Human Rights Foundation, a US-based advocacy group, named her as its chair, and she said she would use the position to step up the struggle with Putin.