Yulia Navalnaya says she and daughter Dasha are comforting each other

[February 22, 2024]  MOSCOW (Reuters) - Alexei Navalny's wife Yulia said on Thursday that she and her daughter Dasha were together and comforting each other following the opposition politician's sudden death last week in a Russian penal colony.  

Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Alexei Navalny, lies down with her daughter Dasha Navalnaya, in an unknown location, in this picture obtained from social media, released on February 22, 2024.

Yulia Navalnaya posted a photograph on X showing her and Dasha, huddled together - Yulia looking into the camera with her hand over her mouth, and Dasha wrapped in a black coat and gazing sadly into space.

"My dear girl. I flew here to hug you and support you, and you are sitting and supporting me. So strong, brave and resilient. We will definitely cope with everything, my dear one. It's so good that you're at my side. I love you," she wrote.

It was not clear where and when the picture was taken. Navalnaya, 47, was in Munich last week when she learned of the death of her husband, Russia's best known opposition leader in the West.

Dasha, their older child, is a student at Stanford University in the United States.

Navalnaya has pledged to continue her husband's work and blamed President Vladimir Putin for his death, an allegation the Kremlin has angrily rejected.

Putin has not commented publicly on the death of Navalny, who was serving sentences totaling more than 30 years on a series of charges, including fraud and extremism, that he said were trumped up to silence him.

The Kremlin has said it was not involved in his death, the circumstances of which it says are under investigation.

(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

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