Navalny's widow reflects on her husband's legacy and releasing his memoir, 'Patriot'

Transcript

Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

Geoff Bennett: In February of this year, Alexei Navalny died in a Russian prison camp three years after he returned to his homeland.

Navalny was Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, an anti-corruption crusader who evolved into a political threat to Putin’s near-quarter-century rule. He survived a nerve agent poisoning by Russian operatives in the summer of 2020, but insisted on returning to continue his fight to change his nation.

Navalny’s memoir is being published tomorrow posthumously shepherded by his wife, Yulia, who has taken on his mantle of political leadership. Navalny wrote while recovering from the poisoning and later surreptitiously in prison.

Yulia Navalnaya met Amna Nawaz yesterday in New York to discuss her husband’s life and his work for this memoir, “Patriot.”

Amna Nawaz: Yulia, thank you for being here. Welcome to the “News Hour.”

Yulia Navalnaya, Widow of Alexei Navalny: Hello. Thank you so much for having me.

Amna Nawaz: So as we sit here and speak now, it’s been eight months since your husband died. How are you doing?

Yulia Navalnaya: Everything has changed in my life. This work on book and all this meeting with politicians, conferences, they give me a power, but very much different than eight months ago.

Amna Nawaz: It gives you a power, you said. What do you mean by that?

Yulia Navalnaya: To continue Alexei’s fight, to continue to do things to keep his legacy, to continue to keep memory about him in people’s minds. Everything of this is very important for me.

Amna Nawaz: There was one moment that really stood out to millions of people. That was when you and Alexei returned to Russia in January of 2021, after he had been recovering in Germany, after nearly dying from being poisoned by Russian agents.

And you and he walked through the terminal after he landed. And then he was immediately arrested in customs and imprisoned, never to be free again. Did you know at that moment that that may be the last time you were together?

Yulia Navalnaya: I didn’t think about that at that moment. I knew that we are going at our homeland. We wanted to go there. I knew that it was very important for my husband to come back to Russia to show that he’s not afraid, to show and to encourage all his supporters not to be afraid.

I knew that it’s very important for him, and I knew that it could be dangerous, but I knew that he would never do it in another way.

Amna Nawaz: He began writing this as he recovered in that German hospital, but he continued to write during his time in prison this last time.

Why was it so important, do you think, to him to continue to write in this way, to make sure that these words got out?

Yulia Navalnaya: You’re right. He started to write in Germany and he continued to write in prison. He wasn’t allowed to have a notebook and a pen more than for one an hour a day.

Amna Nawaz: He wrote this in one-hour increments?

Yulia Navalnaya: Yes, and even — last month even less. But, still, we are very lucky to got some of his prison diaries. Nobody knows how many of them are lost, because, after his death, we got nothing from prison.

Like, no personal belongings were given to us back.

Amna Nawaz: So you think there could be more of his words, more of his writing?

Yulia Navalnaya: I don’t think that — I know in what conditions he was. Everything was taken by police and FSB, so I’m sure that we will never get anything from his personal belongings.

Amna Nawaz: He was known to the entire world as Vladimir Putin’s fiercest, most prominent critic and a political opponent, as sort of an unflinching voice against the forces of corruption. But I was really struck in reading this by just how funny he was, by his sense of humor.

Is that something that stood out to you? Was that always there?

Yulia Navalnaya: It’s one of the parts of him which I liked a lot. He was really very funny. And I’m happy that book is written so. And, even in English, you can feel how funny he was.

It’s the main thing why people loved him so much, why people supported him so much, why he became a leader of opposition, because he was a very ordinary man.

Amna Nawaz: You made each other laugh?

Yulia Navalnaya: A lot.

(Laughter)

Amna Nawaz: There’s a real love story in these pages too. And there’s this moment he shares about the very first time he saw you when you two lock eyes.

He writes in the book that he says to himself at that moment: “This is the one. This is the girl I will marry.”

Do you remember that moment differently when you read it or do you remember it the same way he did?

Yulia Navalnaya: I remember it differently.

Amna Nawaz: Do you?

(Laughter)

Amna Nawaz: What’s your memory of that?

Yulia Navalnaya: I liked him a lot. He was very funny from the first day. He was very clever. But, of course, I didn’t have such thoughts like he will be my husband one day now.

Amna Nawaz: No? When did you realize?

Yulia Navalnaya: When he proposed to me.

(Laughter)

Amna Nawaz: Not before then?

Yulia Navalnaya: That’s what I remember.

(LAUGHTER)

Amna Nawaz: He didn’t arrive at his political views on an impulse. And he goes into great detail and really great historical detail in the book about why he came to believe what he did, why he came to distrust the system and to challenge the system.

And this surprised me. He offers the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster as an example from his youth. Why do you think that was such a formative experience for him?

Yulia Navalnaya: Part of his family lived in Chernobyl. And it was very obvious for him that parents discussed one thing at home, and then, when he switched on and watched TV, there are other news.

Amna Nawaz: This idea of officials who lie to their people, he comes back to this again and again in the book. Was that really the source of his inspiration, of his dedication to his work?

Yulia Navalnaya: I don’t think it’s about lies, the biggest part of this, but, still, it’s about corruption, about that these people, they are not serving their country. They are not serving their people. They’re serving their own interests.

Amna Nawaz: I guess the question, if it’s so deeply entrenched, can it ever be changed?

Yulia Navalnaya: Of course it can be changed one day. It’s a difficult process when you’re living under tyranny and there’s dictatorship in Russia.

Amna Nawaz: There is the obvious question in all of this, Yulia, which is, especially as you’re raising your kids and you’re considering your lives ahead. A lot of people will wonder, why did you go back and why did you stay? Did you ever think, we just shouldn’t go back?

Yulia Navalnaya: I knew that, if we would stay in exile, he wouldn’t be happy.

Amna Nawaz: But he may have been safe.

Yulia Navalnaya: That’s true.

Amna Nawaz: It was worth it to you? Even after he nearly lost his life after being poisoned by Russian agents, knowing the target on his back, you still felt it was worth it to go back to Russia?

Yulia Navalnaya: Now it’s a difficult question, but, at that, moment I knew that he wouldn’t change his mind, and he will — he would come back.

Amna Nawaz: Knowing what about Vladimir Putin, do you believe he would have your husband poisoned in prison?

Yulia Navalnaya: Of course, I’m sure that he did it.

Amna Nawaz: What does justice look like for you, if that’s the case?

Yulia Navalnaya: There are two things which I would love to see, Vladimir Putin in prison, in Russian prison, like my husband was.

And the second is that Russia will become normal democratic country, about which my husband so dreamed.

Amna Nawaz: Do you see that happening, knowing where the opposition movement is right now, knowing that your husband is no longer there to lead it? How do you see that happening now?

Yulia Navalnaya: That’s very important to believe. It’s very important, like my husband said, not to give up, just to do anything you can do every day.

Amna Nawaz: What role do you see for yourself in that?

Yulia Navalnaya: It doesn’t matter about role. I would like to come home, to come back home to Russia.

I would love to live in Russia. I never dreamed to live somewhere else.

Amna Nawaz: Yulia, the opposition in Russia suffered an enormous blow with the loss of your husband. And there’s been reports of it being fractured and leaderless.

When you look at the opposition right now in Russia, where do you see signs of hope?

Yulia Navalnaya: Everywhere.

I think that we all the time, every day need to keep our hope. And all these people inside Russia who are against Putin’s regime, against war, and I very hope that one day everything will change. But it’s just not hope. It’s belief.

I understand that it could take a long time. But, still, as I said, we just need to do anything every day.

Amna Nawaz: Just visiting your husband’s grave is an act of resistance. What do people do or say when they visit? What do you hear?

Yulia Navalnaya: There are a lot of fresh flowers still after eight months pass. Somebody said that Alexei has changed their mind. They believed in politics and in politicians in Russia again.

I hope to come back to Russia one day, and the first thing which I’m going to do, to go to the cemetery.

Amna Nawaz: Yulia Navalnaya, thank you so much for sitting and speaking with us today. We appreciate it.

Yulia Navalnaya: Thank you.