Yulia Navalny, widow of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, will meet European foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday, the European Union's foreign policy chief said.
Navalny, 47, President Vladimir Putin's most prominent domestic enemy, died in a Russian prison on Friday after spending more than three years behind bars, sparking anger and condemnation from Western leaders and supporters. a voice rose.
“We will welcome Yulia Navalnaya to the EU Foreign Affairs Council on Monday,” Josep Borrell told the TV program “X” late on Sunday.
“EU ministers send a strong message of support to Russia's freedom fighters,” he said, “honoring” Navalny's memory.
Earlier on Sunday, Navalnaya posted a photo on Instagram of the two of them touching heads while watching a performance together.
“I love you,” she wrote in the post two days after her husband's death.
The sense of loss she expressed more formally in public took on a personal note just hours after Russian prison authorities announced Navalny's death.
Navalny, 47, died on Friday after losing consciousness while walking at the Polar Wolf penal colony in the Arctic Circle, prison authorities said. He was serving a 30-year sentence at the same prison. The reason for his death remains largely unknown.
On Friday afternoon, Mr. Navalnaya appeared in front of an audience of leaders, diplomats and other officials at the Munich Security Conference, and either took the stage or immediately went to spend time with the couple's two children, Dalia and Zakhar. She said she considered leaving and decided that her husband would want it. She is what she speaks.
Navalnaya, 47, said that if the news of his death were true, “I would like to thank President Putin, his entire inner circle, Putin's friends and his government for what they are doing against our country, against my family and against me.” I want them to know that they will take responsibility for their actions.” husband”.
hundreds of people arrested
Navalny's sudden death was a devastating blow to many Russians who had pinned their hopes for the future on President Putin's deadliest enemy.
Even after surviving a nerve agent poisoning and receiving multiple prison sentences, Navalny remained a vocal and unrelenting critic of the Kremlin.
His death comes a month before Russia's presidential election, which is widely expected to give Putin another six years in power.
Hundreds of people in dozens of Russian cities rushed to makeshift memorials and monuments on Friday and Saturday with flowers and candles to remember the victims of political repression.
Police had detained 366 people in more than a dozen cities by Sunday night, according to rights group OVD-Info, which tracks political arrests and provides legal aid.
More than 200 people were arrested in St. Petersburg, Russia's second largest city, the group said.
Among those detained was Grigory Mikhnov Voytenko, a priest from the Apostolic Orthodox Church, a religious group independent of the Russian Orthodox Church, who announced on social media plans to hold a memorial service for Navalny. He was arrested in front of his home on Saturday morning. .
He was charged with organizing the rally and was held in a police cell, but was later hospitalized after suffering a stroke, OVD-Info reported.
A court in St. Petersburg sentenced 42 of those detained on Friday to jail terms ranging from one to six days, and fined nine others, court officials announced late Saturday.
At least six people in Moscow were sentenced to 15 days in prison, according to OVD-Info.
doubts remain
Questions about the cause of death remain, and it remains unclear when authorities will release Navalny's body.
OVD-Info reported on Sunday that more than 12,000 people had submitted a request to the Russian government asking the politician's remains to be handed over to his relatives.
Mr Navalny's team announced on Saturday that he had been “murdered”, saying his mother and lawyers had received conflicting information from various agencies visited to retrieve his body, and that authorities suspected that he had been intentionally killed. accused of delaying the release of the body.
Russian authorities have labeled Mr. Navalny and his supporters as extremists with ties to the U.S. CIA intelligence agency and say the CIA is trying to destabilize Russia. Navalny has always dismissed his accusations that he was a CIA operative.