“My main task is for our family to stay the same, despite everything,” she told Harper’s Bazaar. 

Behind the scenes, however, those who knew the couple well said Navalnaya not only shared her husband’s views, but also helped shape them. 

Telepathic connection

“At every stage of Alexei’s career, Yulia has always been by his side,” Anna Veduta, employee of the U.S. branch of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, told POLITICO.  

“There was some kind of telepathic connection between them, they sometimes didn’t even need to speak; they thought alike.”

At rallies and court hearings, Navalnaya was always at her husband’s side, attracting the media’s attention with her striking physique and composure, despite her stated wish to avoid the limelight.

“These bastards will never see our tears,” was her response when Navalny received his first prison sentence in 2013 in an embezzlement case his supporters denounced as politically motivated.