‘We know exactly why Putin killed Alexey three days ago’ Yulia Navalnaya announces she will continue her husband’s work

In a video posted on Alexey Navalny’s YouTube channel on Monday, the Russian opposition leader’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, announced that she plans to continue his work in his absence. She also said she knows “exactly why Putin killed Alexey three days ago” and that Navalny’s team will reveal more about this in the near future.

“I wasn’t supposed to be making this video,” she said. “Somebody else was supposed to be in my place. But that person was killed by Vladimir Putin.” She continued:

In killing Navalny, she told Russians, Putin didn’t just want to kill one person: “He wanted to kill our hopes, our freedom, and our future.”

“Alexey died in a penal colony after three years of torture and agony,” she said:

But despite being tortured and starved for three years, Navalnaya said, her husband didn’t give up:

It was because of this perseverance, she continued, that Putin ultimately killed Navalny. “[He killed him] in a disgraceful and cowardly way, never daring to even look him in the eyes or even say his name,” she said. “And in the same despicable and cowardly fashion, they’re now hiding his body, refusing to show it to his mother, not handing it over, pathetically lying, and waiting until the traces of yet another batch of Novichok [poison] disappear.”

“We know exactly why Putin killed Alexey three days ago,” Yulia said. “We’ll tell you about it soon.”

Navalnaya vowed that she and her husband’s associates will find out “exactly who committed this crime and how” — and will reveal the perpetrators’ names and faces.

She also addressed the question of why her husband returned to Russia to face certain political imprisonment after being poisoned by the Putin regime three years ago. “After all, he could have lived peacefully, taken care of himself and his family, right?” she told viewers. “He could have stopped speaking out, stopped investigating, stopped fighting, right? No, he couldn’t have,” she said:

“By killing Alexey,” Navalnaya said, “Putin killed half of me — half of my heart and half of my soul. But I still have the other half. And it’s telling me I don’t have the right to give up.”

She called on Russians to join her:

She ended with a clip of Alexey Navalny himself from the 2022 documentary about his poisoning. “All that’s necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing,” he told his compatriots. “So don’t do nothing.”