Yulia Navalnaya, wife of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, attends the Munich Security Conference (MSC) on the day it was announced that Alexei Navalny was in prison in the Yamal-Nenets region, where he is serving his sentence had died in Munich, southern Germany on February 16, 2024.
Kai Pfaffenbach | Afp | Getty Images
Yulia Navalnaya “had no choice.”
That’s what a Ukrainian lawmaker said about the wife of the late Alexei Navalny, who vowed to continue her husband’s political work in the fight for democracy in Russia after he died in a Siberian prison last month.
When the first reports of Navalny’s death emerged, Navalnaya was at a security conference in Munich. At first she wasn’t sure whether to believe the reports.
Then she took the main stage: “I thought: should I stand here in front of you or should I go back to my children? And then I thought: what would Alexei have done in my place? And I’m sure he would stand here on this stage.”
Yulia Navalnaya (l) receives applause from President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola after speaking to the European Parliament on February 28, 2024.
Friedrich Florin | Afp | Getty Images
From that moment on, Yulia Navalnaya made her husband’s mission her own.
“I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny. Keep fighting for our country. And I invite you to stand next to me,” she said in a video message shared on X just days later.
A feeling of injustice
Lisa Yasko, a 33-year-old member of the Ukrainian parliament, said she could understand that. Her partner is in prison in Georgia for defying the ruling authorities.
Ukrainian MP Lisa Yasko gives a speech in April 2022.
Cristina Quicler | Afp | Getty Images
Yasko, a Kiev native, became a political activist in 2014 after the so-called Maidan uprising, in which Ukrainians took to the streets to demonstrate for closer ties with the European Union rather than Russia.
“I believed I should go into politics to make a difference. I felt a sense of injustice,” she told CNBC via Zoom last month.
At that time, Ukraine’s pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych ignored his country’s parliament and refused to sign a cooperation agreement with the European Union.
In 2019, Yasko met now-President Volodymyr Zelensky and decided to become a lawmaker for his party.
A view of barricades in downtown Kiev after demonstrations in 2014.
Monique Jacques | Corbis news | Getty Images
Yasko remembers being considered “the younger one” early in her political career, but said women in politics began to deserve “more respect” after Russia invaded.
Yasko was part of the Ukrainian delegation that traveled to the Munich Security Conference in February to ask Western allies for more support.
Two years after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country, Yasko said Ukraine now faces “double or triple pressure.”
The “Accidental Politician”
Svetlana Tichanowskaja is also no stranger to fighting for democratic values. She became opposition leader in Belarus after her husband was taken into custody for challenging ruling President Alexander Lukashenko – a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Tichanovskaya has been in exile since 2020 after running against Lukashenko in a presidential election. Lukashenko declared victory in the election. She represents her country at international meetings and has advocated for tougher sanctions against Lukashenko, who has pushed for the arrest of hundreds of activists who have challenged his nearly three decades in power.
The Belarusian political opposition leader in exile, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, holds a folder with a portrait of her husband, the imprisoned opposition figure Sergei Tikhanovskaya, in November 2023
Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images
“I describe myself as an accidental politician,” she told CNBC via Zoom.
“It was 2020 when my husband decided to run [the] However, he was immediately arrested and prevented from becoming president [running]. … I decided to run because of my love for him first and foremost,” she said.
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A May 2023 statement from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Belarus was “unjustly” holding over 1,500 political prisoners.
When asked what keeps her going, Tsikhanouskaya replied, “It is.” [a] great pain, pain that turns into energy.”
“Because when you wake up every day with thoughts of your husband… but also in pain because of all the atrocities and torture that a human being is experiencing at the moment, then you are so angry about this lawlessness,” she added.
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2024-03-04 13:33:12
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