5:59 v originále: Julia Ioffe on Russia after Navalny's death

Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the late Russian opposition leader, has accused authorities of hiding her husband's body to conceal evidence of a possible poisoning. On Monday, she pledged to continue her husband's work to challenge Putin's autocratic rule. How well is Navalnaya known in Russia? Does she have a chance to unite the democratic opposition to Vladimir Putin in Russia and abroad?

„She's a very private person, very guarded person. She's very controlled, very strong and stoic,“ says American journalist Julia Ioffe about Yulia Navalnaya. Ioffe wrote a major profile of Ms. Navalnaya for Vanity Fair and has spoken to her in person several times. Most recently at the Munich Security Conference, the night before Alexei Navalny's death was announced.

Listen to the full interview with Julia Ioffe for the 5:59 podcast in the original version, no dubbing.

Rozhovor s českým dabingem si můžete poslechnout tady.

The family of Alexei Navalny is locked in a grim battle with the Russian authorities over the politician's body. Lyudmila Navalnaya, Mr Navalny's mother, has been making efforts to recover the remains of her deceased son since last Saturday, directly at the prison colony in the Russian Arctic where Navalny died. She has directly appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to release her son's body.

She confirmed that she was allowed to see the body and was shown a medical report that said Navalny died of natural causes. The Russian authorities, Lyudmila Navalnaya says, are refusing to release his remains until his family agrees to a secret funeral.

The Russian opposition is fragmented, not least because of the Putin regime's Stalinist practices against its opponents. Some of the regime's opponents live in exile, others are in Russian prisons, notes Julia Ioffe. Those, who remain in Russia and managed to avoid police persecution, are afraid. If Yulia Navalnaya wants to unite the different opposition currents, it will not be easy, observes Ioffe.

She points out, that the fact, that Navalnaya is a woman, might be her biggest disadvantage. Especially at this moment, when „Putin is pushing this traditionalist and revanchist kind of agenda so hard, that it's hard to imagine Russia having a female president,“ says Julia Ioffe.

How does Yulia Navalnaya differ from her husband? What is the mood of Russians after the announcement of the opposition leader's death? Listen to the audio at the top of the article.