Navalny’s widow meets EU as bloc considers new Russia sanctions

Alexey Navalny’s widow said she’ll continue his fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin as she met with top European Union officials weighing fresh sanctions over the Kremlin critic’s death.

“The main thing we can do now for Alexey and for ourselves is to keep up the fight,” Yulia Navalnaya said in a video address to his supporters posted Monday on social media. “Fight and don’t give up. I’m not afraid, and you shouldn’t be afraid of anything.”

E.U. foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said earlier Monday that Navalnaya would attend a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels to give a “message about how to support the political opposition inside Russia.” Member states will “for sure” propose sanctions against Russia, he said. Putin has made no comment on the death of his most formidable domestic opponent in a remote Arctic prison since it was announced Friday. U.S. President Joe Biden has said “Putin is responsible” for Navalny’s death, which happened as the Russian president is preparing to gain a fifth term in March elections in which he faces no serious competition. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the death of the imprisoned opposition leader displayed the “ruthlessness and perfidy” of Putin and his regime, noting that Navalny’s widow said he was in good health. “So everything indicates, and what she said really confirmed that, that he was deliberately murdered,” von der Leyen told reporters in Berlin on Monday.

News of the fatality came as a surprise to officials working in the Kremlin, according to a person familiar with the matter. It’s unlikely Navalny’s wife will be able to lead the opposition or represent a challenge, the person said.

Officials haven’t given a cause of death for 47-year-old Navalny at the IK-3 prison colony in Russia’s northern Yamalo-Nenets region, while local authorities continue to bar his family from even viewing his body. Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said his mother and lawyers were prevented from entering the Salekhard morgue nearest the prison on Monday and staff refused to say whether the body was being held there. Investigators said a “chemical examination” would be conducted on the body for another 14 days, she said. Under Russian law, authorities are required to transfer the body of a deceased person to family representatives within 48 hours once the cause of death has been established. There’s no time limit on an investigation.