Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, said she would run for president of Russia when Vladimir Putin is no longer in power.
When the time is right, “I will participate in the elections … as a candidate,” Navalnaya told the BBC during an interview.
“My political opponent is Vladimir Putin. And I will do everything to make his regime fall as soon as possible,” she said, adding that her return to Russia “unfortunately is impossible,” as long as Putin remains in charge.
Navalnaya was sentenced in absentia to two months in prison by a Russian court in August on charges of participating in an extremist organization. She now lives outside Russia but would face immediate arrest should she return.
Navalny, the sharpest thorn in Putin’s flesh over the last decade, died in February in a penal colony in the Arctic Circle where he was serving a 19-year prison sentence. Navalnaya has repeatedly accused Putin of ordering her husband’s killing, which the Kremlin has denied.
In an interview with The Times published Sunday, Navalnaya said she does not hate the Russian president but she would like to see him behind bars.
“I don’t hate him. I’m absolutely confident that I don’t wish Putin to die. I want him to be in a Russian prison, like my husband was,” she said.
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