LAST UPDATE | 20 Feb

SOCIAL MEDIA SITE X briefly blocked the account of Yulia Navalnaya just one day after she created it following the death of her husband, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Russia’s prison service said in a short statement on Friday that Navalny had died “after a walk” in the IK-3 colony in the Arctic Yamal region – known as the “Polar Wolf”.

Navalnaya, who for years said she did not see herself as a political figure, yesterday vowed to continue her husband’s work and said Russian President Vladimir Putin had killed him, in a video message shared on X, formerly Twitter.

Around 50 minutes after it was suspended without explanation today, the @Yulia_Navalnaya account page was accessible again.

In a statement on the platform this afternoon, X said its defence mechanism against manipulation and spam “mistakenly flagged” Navalnaya’s account “as violating our rules”. 

“We suspended the account as soon as we became aware of the error, and will be updating the defence,” it said. 

Our platform's defense mechanism against manipulation and spam mistakenly flagged @yulia_navalnaya as violating our rules. We unsuspended the account as soon as we became aware of the error, and will be updating the defense.

— Safety (@Safety) February 20, 2024

Navalnaya opened the account yesterday. Several of Navalny’s top aides and official accounts verified it was her real account.

Yesterday, she posted a video appeal on the platform accusing Putin of killing Navalny and calling on Russians to join her in fighting against the Kremlin.

“I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny. I will continue to fight for the freedom of our country,”  Navalnaya said. “And I call on you to stand by me.”

“Putin took from me the most valuable thing that I had, the closest and most loved person. But Putin also took Navalny from you,” the 47-year-old said.

Hours before the suspension she had also posted angry response to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov after he told reporters her accusations of Putin’s involvement in her husband’s death were “vulgar and unfounded”.

Navalnaya said she did not “give a damn”.

Navalny, Putin’s most vocal critic for the last decade, died Friday in the Arctic prison colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence widely seen as punishment for campaigning against the Kremlin.

Navalnaya stood by her husband as he galvanised mass protests in Russia, flying him out of the country when he was poisoned before defiantly returning to Moscow with him in 2021, knowing he would be jailed.

She met with foreign ministers from the EU’s 27 nations in Brussels yesterday. 

After meeting with Navalnaya, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell pledged that Putin would be held to account for Navalny’s death.

Putin has not publicly commented on Navalny’s death.

With reporting from © AFP 2024