Hours after learning her husband Alexei Navalny had probably died in a remote Russian penal colony, Yulia Navalnaya made an unplanned appearance at the Munich Security Conference to tell western leaders who she held responsible.
“If this is true, I want Putin and all of his entourage, Putin’s friends and his government to know they will be held accountable for what they have done to our country, to my family and to my husband. And that day will come very soon,” Navalnaya said.
Yet the death of the charismatic anti-corruption activist at 47, announced on Friday by prison authorities in the town of Kharp in the Arctic Circle, means the “beautiful Russia of the future” Navalny often spoke of as an ideal has never looked so distant.