(CN) — Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Alexei Navalny, delivered an impassioned speech to the European Parliament on Wednesday denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “bloody mobster” who must be stopped.
Navalnaya urged EU leaders to “stop being boring” and take on Putin and his associates by going after their “mafia money” hidden inside the EU.
“You aren't dealing with a politician but with a bloody mobster,” she told EU lawmakers, who were meeting in Strasbourg, France. “Putin is the leader of an organized criminal gang. This includes poisoners and assassins, but they're all just puppets. The most important thing is the people close to Putin, his friends, associates, and keepers of the mafia's money.”
In the 12 days since Navalny's death in a Siberian prison, Navalnaya has vowed to carry on her husband's political fight to expose corruption inside Russia and bring an end to Putin's regime.
She accuses Putin of ordering the killing of her imprisoned husband, who was one of Putin's fiercest critics and was hailed in the West as Russia's most prominent opposition figure. He shot to international fame after he survived a supposed attempt by Russian intelligence services to kill him with a Soviet-era nerve agent in August 2020.
After his recovery in Germany, he returned to Russia in 2021 and was immediately arrested on politically motivated charges.
Russian authorities say Navalny died of natural causes. That conclusion was backed up on Sunday by the head of Ukraine's military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, who said Navalny appeared to have died from a blood clot. But Russian officials kept Navalny's body under custody for more than a week after his death, raising suspicions. A funeral for Navalny, who was 47, is scheduled for Friday in Moscow and Navalnaya said mourners face arrest.
Navalnaya's speech added to the rising tone of alarm in the West over Russian military advances on the battlefields of Ukraine and the grim prospect that Russia may be able to defeat Kyiv.
In response, European leaders have become more combative as they talk about the need to prepare for a potential war with Russia, discuss taking billions of dollars from frozen Russian assets and using them to buy weapons for Ukraine, step up arms manufacturing and military spending and even float the idea of sending troops to Ukraine's aid.
Navalnaya urged the EU to become braver in its efforts to stop Putin.
“You can't hurt Putin with another resolution or another set of sanctions that is no different from the previous ones,” she said.
Instead, she said the EU must “fight this criminal gang” by conducting “investigations into the financial machinations” behind Putin's regime and uncovering the “discreet lawyers and financiers who are helping Putin and his friends to hide money.”
The EU already has imposed sweeping sanctions against Russian institutions, businessmen, politicians and officials since Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago. After the war, EU authorities seized and froze enormous amounts of assets owned by sanctioned Russian oligarchs. But calls are growing for even more drastic actions against Russia.
Navalnaya said Putin can be defeated and that “there are tens of millions of Russians who are against Putin, against the war [in Ukraine], against the evil he brings.”
She said the West needs to work with those Russians to bring down Putin.
“Putin must answer for what he has done to my country. Putin must answer for what he has done to a neighboring, peaceful country,” she said. “And Putin must answer for everything he has done to Alexei.”
Before her husband's death, Navalnaya mostly remained out of politics and tended to the couple's two children. But she has quickly been embraced by Western leaders as the new face of Russia's opposition. She paid a visit to U.S. President Joe Biden last week.
In Strasbourg, she said her husband's death, coming close to the two-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine, reminded the world of Putin's cruelty.
“The public murder has once again shown everyone that Putin is capable of anything and that you cannot negotiate with him,” she said.
“My husband will not see what the beautiful Russia of the future will look like, but we must see it,” she said. “And I will do my best to make his dream come true, that evil will fall.”
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.
Follow @cainburdeau
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