Navalnîi's widow asks Putin to free the incarcerated opponents. “I know better than anyone the cost of delays in the release of prisoners”

Iulia Navalnaia, the widow of Russian opponent Aleksei Navalnîi, who died in February 2024 in a penitentiary colony in northern Russia, asked Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday to release the Ukraine's opponents incarcerated in Russia, a few hours before the Alaska summit between the American leader.

“Release Russian activists and journalists, Ukrainian civilians, all those closed for anti-war statements and posts on social networks,” Iulia Navalnaia said in a video message posted on her Telegram channel, reports France Presse and Agerpres.

“We do not know and you do not know what will happen after your discussions,” she said, addressing Trump and Putin: “Maybe the results will make a difference. Maybe they will be forgotten in a week,” she continued.

“You have to make an irreversible decision, something that cannot be annulled” to make this summit “historical”: a new exchange of prisoners, she asked the two leaders.

Kiev states that thousands of Ukrainian civilians are detained in Russia and in the regions of Moscow in Ukraine from the invasion launched in February 2022.

Russia has drastically restricted the freedom of the press and the freedom of expression in the online environment of February 2022, and launched criminal prosecution against hundreds of people who expressed their opposition to the War in Ukraine.

Many Russian opponents were forced to flee the country.

“There is no point in losing years with diplomatic exchanges,” added Navalnaia, who now lives in exile.

“Unfortunately, I know better than anyone's cost” in the release of prisoners, she continued, asking the two leaders to “exchange lists” with prisoners to release them.