“We must unite to strike Putin and his friends in one fell swoop.” In a few years, the widow of Alexei Navalny has built a solid reputation in the political and media spheres. To the point of becoming a credible candidate for the title of number one opponent of Vladimir Putin.

What if Youlia Navalnaïa, the widow of Alexeï Navalny who died on February 16, 2024, could in turn become the number one opponent of Vladimir Putin? This Wednesday, March 5, the 47-year-old woman called on Russians to express their opposition to the president on March 17, the last day of the presidential election which will see the re-election of the master of the Kremlin, due to lack of credible opposition. The operation is called “Noon Against Putin.” In a video published on -her, or “simply come and stay in front of the polling station, then turn around and go home” in the face of this “masquerade” that is the presidential election.

On February 19, Youlia Navalnaïa announced that she would continue her husband’s “work”. “I will continue for our country, with you. And I call on you all to stand close to me (…) It is not a shame to scare, it is a shame to do nothing, it is a shame to let yourself be frightened,” she said. Today, it is clear that she kept her word. She now appears determined to take over from her late husband and continue the fight of her life. “We must unite to strike at once Putin, his friends, the thugs in epaulettes, the courtiers and the killers who want to paralyze our country,” she said.

If some may doubt the ability of Youlia Navalnaïa to assume this role of number one opponent of the Kremlin, her commitment speaks for her. First of all, she became, like her husband, a real public figure. She never stopped fighting for Alexeï Navalny, as when he escaped death, poisoned in Siberia by a “Novichok-type” substance in 2020. “Every moment when we were there, I said to myself “ I have to get him out,’” she explained at the time, accusing doctors of dragging out the process until her husband died, or the neurotoxic product was no longer detectable.

Little by little, she was able to gain depth, particularly in the media. A few months later, the couple returned to Moscow knowing that Alexei was going to be imprisoned. “Waiter, bring us some vodka, we’re going home,” she said on the plane. Navalnaïa has a sense of formula and never lets herself be impressed, far from it. In the process, after being separated from her husband at the airport, she was greeted by the crowd shouting “Youlia, Ioulia!”. A striking image which attests to her popularity among Putin’s opponents and her ability to rally behind her, already.

In Alexei Navalny’s own words, his wife was much more severe than him. “When you’re not in politics but you see the darkest things committed against your family then, of course, it radicalizes you,” he explained. What to envision a future in politics? Quite according to political scientist Tatiana Stanovaïa: “whether Yulia Navalnaïa likes it or not, she becomes a political figure”.

After the death of her husband, she met the foreign ministers of the European Union in Brussels on February 19. Enough to gain the support and support of some of them. “EU ministers will send a strong message of support to the freedom fighters in Russia and honor the memory of Alexei Navalny,” wrote Josep Borell on X, Vice-President of the European Commission and High Representative of the EU. Further proof of Yulia Navalnaïa’s ability to unite and assert herself as a credible number one opponent against Vladimir Putin.

It is also the attention with which her every move is closely scrutinized by the Kremlin that makes Navalnaya a credible number one opponent of Putin. upon the death of her husband, she became a prime target. Hundreds of degrading and misogynistic comments flooded into social networks and a vast campaign of disinformation against him began. A message attributed to the opponent’s mother-in-law was released, accusing the widow of not having “respected a phase of mourning”, preferring “to parade on the red carpets”. Words she never said. The television channel Tsargrad TV, close to the Kremlin, then admitted the deception. But that’s not all, the disinformation campaign goes much further.

Some accuse him of infidelity. A photo of her in shorts, on the beach with a man was widely shared. In reality, the image is not recent. Montages are also made by replacing Navalny’s face with that of Yevgeny Chichvarkin, a Russian millionaire. “Rare photo of Navalnaïa mourning the death of her husband with her closest friend” allows a user to comment. A cascade of fake news in which the Donbass Insider blog takes part, run by a French woman who has become a spokesperson for Russia, as confirmed by the Antibot4Navalny collective to the TF1info editorial staff. This is why it is possible to come across this type of anti-Navalny propaganda in France. Some information is catapulted onto the site pravda-fr.com, a member of the Portal Kombat network, a pro-Russian disinformation and propaganda network that we presented to you on February 13.