When the time is right, “I will participate in the elections … as a candidate,” she told the BBC Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Alexei Navalny in an interview with the BBC.

“My political opponent is Vladimir Putin. And I will do everything to bring down his regime as soon as possible,” he said. Although she knows she cannot return to Russia right now because of the risk of arrest, Yulia Navalnaya looks forward to the day she believes will inevitably come when the Putin era ends and Russia reopens.

It is recalled that her husband, Alexei Navalny, the most ardent critic of President Putin, was sentenced to 19 years in prison for extremism, charges considered politically motivated, and died last February in the Arctic Circle. US President Joe Biden said there was “no question” that Putin was to blame for his death, but Russia denies it killed Navalny.

As Patriot, the memoir her husband was writing before his death, is released, Yulia Navalnaya has revisited her plans to continue his struggle for democracy. Like her husband, she believes there will be an opportunity to hold free and fair elections. When that happens, he says he’ll be there.

Navalny was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok in 2020. He was flown to Germany for treatment and German Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded answers from Putin’s regime. Navalny cooperated with investigators and traced the poisoning to Russia’s security service, the FSB.

So he began writing his memoirs as he recovered.

He and Yulia returned to Russia in January 2021 where he was arrested after landing.

“I knew he wanted to return to Russia. I knew he wants to be with his supporters, he wanted to be an example to all these people with his courage and bravery to show people that there is no reason to fear this dictator. I never let my self think that it could be killed… we’ve lived this life for decades and it’s about sharing these hardships, sharing these views. Support him.”

After his imprisonment, Navalny continued his book in notebooks, social media posts and diaries, which are being published for the first time. Some of his writings were confiscated by prison authorities, he said.

Yulia Navalnaya says she was not allowed to visit or speak to her husband for two years before he died. He says that Alexei was tortured, starved and kept in “horrendous conditions”.

The Russians claim that Navalny died of natural causes, but Yulia believes that President Putin ordered his murder.