Alexei Navalny's widow Yulia says she'll stand as Russian President

Navalny familyAlexei Navalny and Yulia Navalnaya at a rally before the Moscow mayoral election in 2013Yulia Navalnaya intends to be president of Russia, she tells me. She looks me straight in the eye. No hesitation or wavering. This, like so many of the decisions she made with her husband, the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, is unambiguous.Navalnaya knows she faces arrest if she returns home while President Putin is still in power. His administration has accused her of participating in extremism.This is no empty threat. In Russia, it can lead to death.Her husband, President Putin’s most vocal critic, was sentenced to 19 years for extremism, charges that were seen as politically motivated. He died in February in a brutal penal colony in the Arctic Circle. US President Joe Biden said there was “no doubt” Putin was to blame. Russia denies killing Navalny.Yulia Navalnaya, sitting down for our interview in a London legal library, looks and sounds every inch the successor to Navalny,…