A little less than five months after Alexei Navalny died under suspicious circumstances in a Russian prison camp, authorities in the country have ordered the arrest of his widow, Yulia Navalnaya. Alexei was a Russian opposition leader and lawyer who died in February this year. Just a few years earlier, he was in a coma after allegedly being poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent.
His wife, Yulia, who was always by his side but steered clear of the spotlight, has since become the leader of the opposition. Yulia, who now lives in exile, has often been referred to as a “snow queen” for her aloofness, but the 48-year-old has become the voice for many dissidents of Russia’s current regime. Here is what you need to know about her: What is Yulia Navalnaya’s background? {"@context":"https://schema.
org","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"Yulia Navalnaya studied economics and worked at a bank before marrying her husband. Photo: @yulia_navalnaya/Instagram","url":"https://img.i-scmp.
com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/07/26/42323acc-6ab0-42be-97b7-90672fcf6d0f_7390c88c.jpg"} Yulia Navalnaya studied economics and worked at a bank before marrying her husband. Photo: @yulia_navalnaya/Instagram Yulia was born in Moscow in 1976.
Her father Boris Abrosimov was a scientist and her mother Alla worked in government. Per Washington Post, her parents split when she was a child and she rarely mentioned them as she got older and her life became more public. According to Reuters, Yulia studied economics at the Plekhanov Russian School of Economics before working at a Moscow bank.
She then worked at a foreign trade company. How she fell in love with Alexei Navalny {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"Alexei Navalny and Yulia Navalnaya met in Turkey, in 1998.
Photo: @navalny/Instagram","url":"https://img.i-scmp.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/07/26/ca985be5-eea5-4673-afa5-79b6476c44ef_7390c88c.
jpg"} Alexei Navalny and Yulia Navalnaya met in Turkey, in 1998. Photo: @navalny/Instagram Yulia met Alexei while on holiday in Turkey in 1998, according to a Time profile. Alexei, who was a property agent at the time, reportedly spotted her on a tour bus and was immediately captivated by her looks.
Alexei said, “She was the beautiful blonde who knew every cabinet minister by name.” Yulia has been widely quoted as saying that, at the time, Alexei’s political future had not yet begun, and they were just an ordinary couple who fell in love. {"@context":"https://schema.
org","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"Alexei Navalny and Yulia Navalnaya were partners in life in general. Photo: @navalny/Instagram","url":"https://img.i-scmp.
com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/07/26/53d41f61-d840-4bcd-968e-6e7b28e6ec4f_7e410762.jpg"} Alexei Navalny and Yulia Navalnaya were partners in life in general. Photo: @navalny/Instagram The couple got married two years later in 2000 and Yulia paused her career to raise their children – Dasha born in 2001 and Zakhar in 2008.
According to Time, Yulia helped her in-laws with their wicker furniture business while Alexei began his life as an activist, receiving guidance from Yevgenia Albats, a leader in Russia’s dissident movement. The Washington Post reports that the couple lived in a small flat in Moscow as they raised their children away from the eye of their political opponents. Alexei Navalny’s poisoning {"@context":"https://schema.
org","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"Yulia Navalnaya took actions to evacuate her husband, Alexei Navalny, from Russia to Germany after he was poisoned with a nerve agent. Photo: @navalny/Instagram","url":"https://img.i-scmp.
com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/07/26/5d09f61f-5bf8-4610-bc70-26bba45ce069_7a6fecb6.jpg"} Yulia Navalnaya took actions to evacuate her husband, Alexei Navalny, from Russia to Germany after he was poisoned with a nerve agent. Photo: @navalny/Instagram For much of her husband’s career in the spotlight, Yulia remained in the shadows.
It was only in 2020 when he was poisoned that her name entered the media glare. She played a prominent role in her husband’s evacuation from Russia to Germany, where he received treatment for poisoning with a Novichok nerve agent, which is usually designed for chemical warfare. {"@context":"https://schema.
org","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"Alexei Navalny and Yulia Navalnaya were popular among younger Russians. Photo: @navalny/Instagram","url":"https://img.i-scmp.
com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/07/26/9f1f86ae-00b4-4725-a959-f2149905704f_dea29471.jpg"} Alexei Navalny and Yulia Navalnaya were popular among younger Russians. Photo: @navalny/Instagram At the time, Yulia wrote to the Kremlin to ask that he be allowed out of Russia to receive treatment.
Alexei was in a medically induced coma and wrote an intimate message to his wife after recovering. He said that he did not recognise anyone and did not know what was going on, but he knew he was waiting for “her”. He said each visit was therapeutic: “Now I know for sure simply from experience: love heals and brings people back to life.
Yulia, you saved me, and let them put that in the neurobiological textbooks.” {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"Alexei Navalny was arrested in 2021 and stayed in prison until his death earlier this year.
Photo: @navalny/Instagram","url":"https://img.i-scmp.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/07/26/fc79f59a-3b60-4381-8275-cbe25554f4ec_86d76a58.
jpg"} Alexei Navalny was arrested in 2021 and stayed in prison until his death earlier this year. Photo: @navalny/Instagram The couple returned to Russia months later and Alexei was arrested almost immediately, where he spent the remainder of his life behind bars. Yulia Navalnaya’s life on the run {"@context":"https://schema.
org","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"Yulia Navalnaya herself had been arrested several times in 2021 after taking part in rallies. Photo: @Медиазона/X","url":"https://img.i-scmp.
com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/07/26/85616272-276b-42cc-a873-faa6ed0860bb_175c590a.jpg"} Yulia Navalnaya herself had been arrested several times in 2021 after taking part in rallies. Photo: @Медиазона/X Alexei has openly spoken about how his family was impacted by his political decisions, telling Reuters in 2017 that security forces were tracking his wife and children ahead of his 2018 presidential run.
During one of his campaigns in 2017, someone threw green antiseptic dye in his face. {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"Yulia Navalnaya and her daughter Dasha.
Photo: @yulia_navalnaya/Instagram","url":"https://img.i-scmp.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/07/26/5471d639-763e-4266-ab00-73d48e1c5443_7390c88c.
jpg"} Yulia Navalnaya and her daughter Dasha. Photo: @yulia_navalnaya/Instagram Per Reuters, Yulia was arrested multiple times at protests related to Alexei’s work. In 2021, she was detained twice after taking part in rallies in Moscow supporting him after he was arrested.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, his children were in exile, per Time. Zakhar was enrolled at a German boarding school while Dasha was studying at Stanford. The Washington Post reported that, while in prison, Alexei sent his wife love letters.
Just one day before his death, he wrote on Instagram: “Babe, we have everything like in a song: cities between us, airport runway lights, blue blizzards and thousands of kilometres. But I feel you are near me every second, and I love you more and more.” {"@context":"https://schema.
org","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"The love story between Yulia Navalnaya and Alexei Navalny is fit for a novel. Photo: @navalny/Instagram","url":"https://img.i-scmp.
com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/07/26/4325538a-100e-4bd2-82f5-18a54a094d4a_ff2689ac.jpg"} The love story between Yulia Navalnaya and Alexei Navalny is fit for a novel. Photo: @navalny/Instagram In February, Alexei died at the Polar Wolf Arctic penal colony.
The 47-year-old was serving a 19-year sentence for “extremism”. Per Al Jazeera, his mother was told that he collapsed and had “sudden death syndrome.” According to Time, Yulia was in a hotel room when she received a news alert on her phone that her husband had died.
“It was a feeling like I cannot describe, and I hope to never feel again,” she said of the experience. How Yulia Navalnaya took the helm Yulia went from avoiding the spotlight to taking over from her husband. Just three days after his death, she told supporters in a video message: “Share my rage – the rage, anger and hatred toward those who dared to kill our future.
” {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"Yulia Navalny continues her husband’s political work. Photo: @yulia_navalnaya/Instagram","url":"https://img.
i-scmp.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/07/26/61b2b1c1-854e-4648-9b0e-833b21e758f4_6ed415b8.jpg"} Yulia Navalny continues her husband’s political work.
Photo: @yulia_navalnaya/Instagram After her husband’s death, she met with US President Joe Biden and addressed the European Parliament. Outside of Russia, she has used her voice to meet with statesmen to rally support against Russia’s Vladimir Putin . The Human Rights Foundation, a US-based non-profit group, named Yulia its chair last week, per Al Jazeera.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in February at a penal colony after being detained in 2021; he wrote a poetic post on Instagram a day before his death about the love he shares with his wife The couple met in Turkey in 1998 and shares 2 children, Dasha and Zakhar, who live outside of Russia; the country’s authorities have ordered the arrest of Yulia, who has met with US President Joe Biden.
