My husband Sasha took us out of Russia. Because she knew that if we stayed there, she would never be able to protect us. With Alexei it was different. He was a politician and had to stay there to have any hope of exerting any influence. He was sentenced to 19 years in prison, and from the moment they locked him up, his life was on the line. But President Putin is an old man. I was hoping that Alexei would eventually be released. I never thought he would be killed. I couldn’t resist.
Navalny gave Russia a chance. He showed people that this could still be our country, that we didn’t have to completely give up and submit to this dictator. With him, he felt he still had a chance.
I am in awe of how Yulia has assumed the role in the days since her husband was murdered. I could never do what she is doing. When Sasha was poisoned, I couldn’t even speak. He was afraid to go out, he was afraid to talk to the press, he couldn’t handle the fact that the whole world was watching him die. I was in complete shock when he passed away. All I could do was focus on my son, who was so sad and worried. He was only 12 years old and it was the second time in his life that he had been forced to leave his hometown. He was 6 years old when we took him from Moscow and took him away from his home and grandparents to Spain and then London. I was so worried about him when his father was killed so brutally in front of the whole world. Yulia’s children are older than Anatoly, but it doesn’t matter how old you are. Nothing prepares you for this.
I can completely understand Yulia’s instinct to keep moving forward and continue spreading her husband’s message. In the months since Sasha’s death, this has focused my energy on the police investigation. The difference, of course, was that I was in the UK so I knew the investigation would be fair and thorough. Yulia has a completely different challenge ahead of her. She’ll have to fight just to get Alexei’s girlfriend back, but whether she has any expectations of leading her own movement is another matter entirely.