The struggle of Yulia Naválnaya (wife of Alexéi Navalni) for saving the life of the only leader who has left the Russian opposition

While the plane was about to land, Navalnaya thought no, that just that should be the worst moment of all.What news was waiting for him when he turned on his mobile?She immediately found a solution: she would ask Zhdánov to read the text messages that had come to her, and so she could know, seeing the gestures of man, to what extent the situation was bad."I wanted to calm down and be well when I arrived at the airport," said the woman.

Naválnaya learned that her husband had not died, but she had not yet arrived as difficult. In the WHO hospital, Naválnaya met a wall of doctors who seemed more fear of her superiors than to the death of her patient. The doctors had the reinforcements (or with the containment) of a small battalion of federal security agents that went from the countryman, all delivered to the task of preventing Yulia from seeing her husband. To enter this room, they told her that she had to present a marriage certificate and obtain the verbal permit of Navalni, which remained unconscious and in intensive care. She glared at her, dismantled her arguments and managed to impose her will, all this while a growing swarm of journalists approached her cameras, microphones and smartphones. Finally, she Naválnaya managed to cross the barrier and see her husband, whose body came out endless cables and tubes, and that was twisted by the almost continuous seizures he suffered. (The wife would not find out until days after this was due to the effect of a nervous agent of military use, of the Novichok family). She was forced to fight with doctors and center administrators to see the analysis of her husband in the laboratory, to give improvised press wheels on the steps of the hospital, wandering hidden by the city to find the German doctors who They had arrived with a medicalized private plane and to whom the authorities had forbidden to see. She had to demand, repeatedly, that the WHO hospital let her out of her husband to take him to the plane that would transport him to Berlin: the only way, as everyone knew, to be able to save her life. And she would never lose control of her emotions again.

For two days Russia and the world contained their breath while seeing if Navalni, the only plausible average alternative to Putin, lived or died.But whom they did go to Navalnaya.Suddenly, this attractive blonde with a black leather jacket, who had always appeared silent next to her husband, was alone in front of the eyes of the world, fighting all the repressive machinery of the Russian state to tear her husband from the clawsof death.People were stunned by what she saw."Russia is still a sexist country," says economist Serguéi Guriev, friend and former advisor to Navalni.“People believe that a woman is not an independent person, especially if she doesn't work.Therefore, they did not understand that Yulia is.But then they understood.They saw how Yulia faced the machinery and won.I think that that opened their eyes. ”