Alexei Navalny's widow Yulia has X account reinstated after suspension

It comes less than a week after the death of the Russian dissident in an Arctic penal colony.
Robert Dex @RobDexES20 February 2024

The X account belonging to Alexei Navalny's widow Yulia has been restored shortly after it was suspended prompting a social media outcry.

It is unclear why the social network, formerly Twitter, suspended Yulia Navalnaya's account but it appears to have been swiftly reinstated.

Online searches for the account had brought up the message “Account suspended” with a note that X “suspends accounts that violate our rules” but it now shows a video message from her late husband’s mother.

The jailed dissident died on Friday in the ‘Polar Wolf’ Arctic prison camp where he was being held by Russian authorities.

Russia’s federal prison service has said Alexei Navalny is dead (Moscow City Court via AP, File)
AP

The Kremlin’s most prominent critic, 47-year-old Mr Navalny was imprisoned in January 2021 after he returned to Russia from Germany where he was recuperating from a near-lethal poisoning with a nerve agent. His widow has vowed to continue his campaign and speaking on Monday she asked the European Union not to recognise Russia's March election, which is almost certain to give President Vladimir Putin another six-year term.

Navalnaya used a video message to call on supporters to oppose Putin with greater fury than ever and free Russia from what she characterised as a corrupt elite of "bandits in uniform, thieves and murderers".

"Do not recognise these elections," Navalnaya told European Union foreign ministers at a meeting in Brussels on Monday, according to a transcript supplied on Tuesday by a spokeswoman.

"A president who assassinated his main political opponent cannot be legitimate by definition," Navalnaya said.

President Putin
via REUTERS

Navalnaya has accused Putin of killing her husband and said evidence would be provided shortly. Western leaders including U.S. President Joe Biden have blamed Putin for the death and warned of consequences but have given no evidence.

Putin has yet to comment in public on Navalny's death. The Kremlin has denied involvement and said Western claims Putin was responsible are completely unacceptable.

Navalnaya, a 47-year-old mother-of-two, said she would help lead a shell-shocked opposition to resist Putin, Russia's paramount leader for more than two decades.

She said the reason the authorities had still not handed over Navalny's body to his mother Lyudmila - who travelled to the penal colony at the weekend - was because they were waiting for traces of a Novichok nerve agent to leave his corpse but provided no evidence for her allegation.

Lyudmila Navalnaya, 69, asked Putin in a video message released on Tuesday to hand over her son's body. "Let me finally see my son," she said.

Asked about Yulia Navalnaya's allegation Putin had killed her husband, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he could not comment given the circumstances.

"We leave it without comment. Of course, these are absolutely unsubstantiated, obnoxious accusations against the head of the Russian state. But given that Yulia Navalnaya was widowed just days earlier, I will leave it without comment".

Peskov said Navalnaya's talk of a nerve agent being used against her husband was unfounded.

"I am not familiar with this statement. But if it contained such words, it is nothing but unsubstantiated accusations, because they are not supported by anything, not confirmed," he said.

Asked about police detaining some people who laid flowers at monuments in Moscow and other cities after Navalny's death, Peskov said the police had acted in accordance with the law.

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