Navalny’s death robs Russia’s disparate opposition of its most charismatic and courageous leader as Putin prepares for an election that will keep him in power until at least 2030.
In a nine-minute video message laced with rage, Navalnaya said Putin had killed her husband and, in doing so, had robbed her of a husband and her two children of a father.
But she said the only answer to such a crime was to continue her late husband’s fight for a free and prosperous Russia. Russians, she said, wanted to live differently, even if there appeared little hope.
“I want to live in a free Russia; I want to build a free Russia,” Navalnaya said in the video message entitled
“I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny.”
“I urge you to stand next to me,” she said. “I ask you to share the rage with me. Rage, anger, and hatred
towards those who dared to kill our future.”
Navalnaya accused the Russian authorities of hiding Navalny’s corpse
and of waiting for traces of the Novichok nerve agent to disappear from his body.
“Vladimir Putin killed my husband,” Navalnaya said.
“By killing Alexei, Putin killed half of me - half of my heart and half of my soul.”
“But I still have the other half, and it tells me that I have no right to give up. I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny, and continue to fight for our country,” she pledged.
