Yulia Navalnaya: Russian court orders arrest of Alexei Navalny’s wife in absentia

CNN
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A court in Moscow has ordered the arrest in absentia of Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of the late Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, her spokesman said on Tuesday.

The Basmanny District Court in Moscow accused Navalnaya of “participation in an extremist organization,” her spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said in a post on social media. According to the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, she is also on an international wanted list.

In addition, the court granted a request from the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation to take Navalnaya into custody. The duration of her pre-trial detention will be calculated from the moment of her possible extradition to Russian territory or from her detention on Russian territory, according to a press release. Navalnaya does not live in Russia.

Alexei Navalny died on February 16 in a penal colony in Siberia, where he was serving a 19-year sentence after being found guilty in August of creating an extremist community, financing extremist activists and various other crimes.

He was already serving an 11-and-a-half-year sentence in a maximum security prison for fraud and other charges that he had always denied and described as politically motivated.

Navalny was Russia’s most prominent opposition leader and spent years criticizing Putin, who has been in power for nearly a quarter of a century, at great personal risk. His death came just weeks before nationwide presidential elections scheduled to begin on March 15. The international community views the elections as little more than a formality designed to secure Putin a fifth term in office.

Navalny’s death sparked grief and anger around the world and in Russia itself. Because even the smallest act of political dissent carries enormous risks.

He returned to Russia in 2021 from Germany, where he had been treated for poisoning with Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent. Upon his arrival, Navalny was quickly arrested on charges he dismissed as politically motivated and spent the rest of his life in prison.

His wife Yulia Navalnaya accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being responsible for his death in February and hinted that she would succeed her husband for a “happy, beautiful Russia”.

Navalnaya posted an eight-minute video on her late husband’s social media in which she said Putin “killed the father of my children. Putin took away the most precious thing from me, the person who was closest to me and whom I loved the most.”

She said Russian authorities were “hiding” Navalny’s body to conceal the cause of death – they were “lying miserably” and waiting for “traces of another of Putin’s Novichoks to disappear.”

The Kremlin has denied all allegations of involvement in Navalny’s death.

Responding to the court’s decision on Tuesday, Navalnaya reiterated claims that Putin was involved in her husband’s death.

“His place is in prison, and not somewhere in The Hague, in a comfortable cell with a TV, but in Russia – in the same colony and the same 2 by 3 meter cell where he killed Alexei,” she said in a social media post.

“Oh, won’t there be the usual procedure? A foreign agent, then the opening of a criminal case, then an arrest?! If you write about it, please do not forget to write the main thing: Vladimir Putin is a murderer and a war criminal.”

CNN’s Nathan Hodge, Sahar Akbarzai and Jack Guy contributed to this article.

This is a developing story and will be updated.