Yulia Navalnaya is accused of participating in an “extremist” group and faces at least two months in jail if she returns to Russia from exile.
A Moscow court has ordered Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of late Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny, to be jailed for two months.
The court accused Navalnaya, who lives in exile, of participating in an “extremist” group. The decision means she will face certain arrest if she sets foot in the country.
Navalnaya, 47, rose to prominence after her husband's death in an Arctic penal colony in February and said she would continue the fight for what Navalny called the “beautiful Russia of the future.”
In an article in X on Tuesday, Navalnaya called on her supporters to focus not on the court order against her but on the battle against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“When writing about this, do not forget to write the main thing: Vladimir Putin is a murderer and a war criminal,” he wrote.
“His place is in prison and not somewhere in The Hague, in a cozy cell with a television, but in Russia, in the same [penal] colony and the same 2 by 3 meter cell in which he killed Alexey.”
The Kremlin has denied ordering Navalny's killing.
'Fight against Putin'
Since her husband's death, Navalnaya has met with several Western leaders, including US President Joe Biden in San Francisco.
Last week, the U.S. nonprofit Human Rights Foundation named Navalnaya as its president, and she said she would use the new role to step up her husband's fight against Putin.
“We will take into consideration everything that can be useful in fighting Putin, in fighting for a beautiful Russia of the future,” he said.
Navalnaya left Russia in 2021 and has been living in Germany since her husband's death.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Navalnaya was carrying on her husband's legacy and denounced the Moscow court's ruling as “an arrest warrant against the desire for freedom and democracy.”
Russian authorities have not specified the charges against Navalnaya. They appear to be related to the designation of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation as an “extremist organization.”
The 2021 court ruling that outlawed Navalny's group forced his close associates and team members to leave Russia.
Navalny was jailed after returning to Moscow in January 2021 from Germany, where he was recovering from the 2020 nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.
He died in the Arctic penal colony “Polar Wolf”, 1,900 kilometres northeast of Moscow, where the 47-year-old was serving a 19-year prison sentence on various charges. Prison officials told his mother that he died of “sudden death syndrome”.
Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said the leader “was murdered.” Navalny's death separated Putin from his greatest political enemy, who organized mass protests against the Kremlin and fought corruption.
