For them, and especially for his wife Yulia Navalnaya, the weeks that followed were a blur of studio lights, airports, hotels, and video calls. Between consoling their two children and being consoled by them, she met with President Joe Biden in San Francisco and addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. She accused Vladimir Putin of killing her husband and implored the Russian people to help her get revenge. Along the way, Navalnaya took on a new role, no longer the first lady of the Russian opposition, but now its figurehead.
It was in this new role that she agreed in early April to an interview with TIME, a little more than 40 days after her husband was killed. "There has been so little time to think, to plan, to process," she admitted. "But we have to keep working, to keep moving forward."
For her husband's followers in Russia, the way forward looks far from clear. It took well over a decade of activism for Navalny to earn his place within the opposition movement as the only dissident to pose a threat to Putin's rule. Even after his imprisonment in 2021, Navalny continued to run his revolutionary network, to campaign against corruption, and to spread his promise that Russia would one day become a normal European democracy. That hope dimmed after Navalny's death-for many, it was extinguished.
This story is from the May 13, 2024 edition of Time.
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This story is from the May 13, 2024 edition of Time.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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