Navalnaya worked for some time at a Moscow bank.
Supporting her husband In 2000, Navalnaya, together with her husband Alexei Navalny, joined the
Yabloko party, After 2007, Navalny gained fame in Russia as a blogger and opposition politician. Navalnaya became the first secretary and assistant to her husband. The family's life became noticeably more public, so that Navalnaya was in the spotlight as the "first lady of the Russian opposition". Navalnaya attracted close public attention in the late summer and early fall of 2020, when her husband was urgently hospitalized in
Omsk following
Novichok poisoning. She demanded that Navalny be immediately transferred to Germany for medical treatment and even turned directly to Russian President
Vladimir Putin. After German experts confirmed
Navalny's poisoning, Russian physician
Leonid Roshal said that no poisonous substance was found in Navalny's samples in Russia and suggested creating a Russian-German team on this matter. Navalnaya accused him of acting "not as a doctor, but as the voice of the state." She followed her husband to Berlin, was with him at the
Charité hospital, and Navalny later posted a message, "Yulia, you saved me."
Novaya Gazeta and its audience named Navalnaya its 2020 Hero of the Year. In January 2021, Navalnaya returned to Russia with her husband. After Navalny was detained at the border control, she made a statement that the arrest and the closure of the airport in
Vnukovo were a manifestation of the Russian authorities' fear of Navalny. "Alexei said that he is not afraid", she said. "— And I'm not afraid either. And I urge you all not to be afraid." Later, Navalnaya accused the
security officials of "persecut[ing] [her] as the wife of an
enemy of the people." She wrote on Instagram: "The
Year of '37 has come, and we did not notice." On 21 January, Navalnaya announced that she would attend the
2021 Russian protests to demand the release of her husband. On 23 January, she was detained by the authorities but released the same evening. On 16 February 2024, the Russian prison service announced that
her husband had died in prison at the
IK-3 penal colony in
Yamalo-Nenets, north of the
Arctic Circle. His supporters suspected that he had been tortured in prison, and they, along with Western world leaders, believe that prison officials murdered him on the eve of an arranged prison swap with a German prisoner. Navalnaya vowed that she would continue his work after his death. On 9 July 2024, Russia's
Basmanny District Court ordered the arrest of Navalnaya (who was not in or living in Russia at the time) for "participating in an extremist community". Days later, she was placed on Russia's official list of terrorists and extremists.
Independent political career » protest in front of the Russian Embassy in Berlin during the
2024 Russian presidential election, 17 March 2024 In September 2020, after the poisoning of Navalny, multiple opinions began to appear, suggesting that Navalnaya was preparing to play an independent political role and might become the "Russian
Tsikhanouskaya" — the leader of the entire opposition. Political analyst Konstantin Kalachev stated in January 2021 that Navalnaya's role had changed: "From the wife of a politician, she is herself becoming a politician"; "she has charisma and charm, and can easily replace her husband if necessary." Political strategist
Abbas Gallyamov compared Navalnaya to
Corazon Aquino, the wife of the main opposition leader in the Philippines who opposed the regime of
Ferdinand Marcos, the dictator who ruled the Philippines for twenty years. Additionally, there were also opinions that such a turn of events is unlikely. In January 2021, the Kremlin-controlled channel
Tsargrad TV issued a public threat to Navalnaya, blackmailing her by stating that it would publish intimate files of Alexei Navalny unless she promised "not to become Tsikhanouskaya in Russia" and "not to play political games." ,
Ilya Yashin, and
Ruslan Shaveddinov at an anti-war protest in Berlin, 17 November 2024 After hearing reports of
her husband's death in February 2024, Navalnaya, who had been attending the
Munich Security Conference, subsequently gave a speech in which she said that if her husband had died, Putin and his allies would "be brought to justice." Soon afterward, she published a video online stating that she plans to continue her husband's political work, and asked Russians to rally around her as they did around her husband, saying: "I want to live in a free Russia, I want to build a free Russia." On 28 February 2024, Navalnaya addressed the
European Parliament after being invited by EP president
Roberta Metsola. During her speech, she accused Vladimir Putin of having orchestrated her husband's murder and said that European leaders need to "stop being boring" and innovate if they want to defeat Putin. Navalnaya leads the
Anti-Corruption Foundation, On 1 July 2024, Navalnaya was announced as the chairperson of the
Human Rights Foundation, succeeding chess grandmaster, human rights advocate, and one of the most renowned Russian opposition figures,
Garry Kasparov. On 21 October 2024, on the eve of launching Navalny's memoir
Patriot, Navalnaya gave an interview to the
BBC, in which she stated that she would stand for president of Russia once Putin was no longer in power. She said that she would like to see Putin behind bars, punished for his crimes. She said that the Anti-Corruption Foundation (now led by her) has evidence that will be released once all of the details have been collected. On 17 September 2025, Navalnaya published a video in which she suggested that her husband was murdered in prison by Vladimir Putin's forces. == Recognition and influence ==