After the announcement of the death of the main opponent of the Kremlin Alexei Navalnyhis widow, Yulia Navalnaya, who vowed to continue her late husband’s fight, is the target of fake news and rumors on the Internet to discredit her.
Navalny spent three years in prison and survived a poisoning in 2020 for which he blamed the Kremlin. During his detention he spent almost 300 days in a disciplinary cell.
Just hours after prison authorities announced his death on Friday, a photo of his widow smiling with another man on a beach was posted online.
The comments stated or suggested that the photo was recent and accused him of simulating his sadness in his public appearances.
“On the day of Navalny’s death, Yulka, his grieving widow, was resting on a beach!”you can read in a comment next to the image.
The photo was also widely published in English, German and Serbo-Croatian on various social networks.
An old photo
However, this photo of Navalnaya is not recent.
After an investigation, AFP discovered that the image was first posted on the Instagram account of Evgeny Chichvarkin, a 49-year-old Russian billionaire, in August 2021.
“With the first lady of the beautiful Russia of the future @yulia_navalnaya Freedom @navalny!”he wrote, locating the photo in Jurmala, Latvia.
Chichvarkin, co-founder and former owner of the main Russian cellphone distributor Euroset, fled to the United Kingdom in 2008. Accused of kidnapping and extortion, he was the subject of an international search warrant and an extradition request until 2011, the year in which Russia he dropped the charges.
He is currently a wine merchant and has become a fervent opponent of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
He was a friend of Navalni and according to the press he helped finance his fight and part of his medical expenses after his poisoning in 2020.
The publication of his photo with Yulia Navalnaya was widely commented on then. In an interview with an independent radio station, the businessman declared, with a touch of irony: “People are jealous, they would also like to walk by the sea with Yulia Navalnaya, a beautiful and strong woman, potentially a first lady.”
“Unfortunately, Alexei was imprisoned, but no one imprisoned her,” he added.
fake invoices
Yulia Navalnaya is regularly the subject of rumors aimed at discrediting her or her late husband. The 47-year-old woman is also accused on the Internet of being a “political ‘escort’”, using the photo in which she is seen with Chichvarkin or the testimony of a woman she claims to be her former assistant.
This claim was spread mainly by the website pravda-fr.com, which belongs to a “structured and coordinated” network of 193 websites that spread Russian propaganda in Europe and the United States, according to Viginum, the French anti-terrorism organization. foreign digital interference.
Other Internet accounts spread photos of invoices from the hotel reservation site Booking to support the accusations.
But according to Eliot Higgins, founder of the digital investigative medium Bellingcat, the document presented was falsified.
In a video published on February 19 on social networks, Navalnaya, with her voice sometimes breaking with emotion, spoke about her husband’s life and suffering, and assured that she will take his place.
“Three days ago, Vladimir Putin killed my husband, Alexei Navalny. Putin killed the father of my children. (…) With it, he wanted to kill our spirit, our freedom, our future,” he claimed.
“I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny. I will continue through our country, with you. I ask you all to be by my side (…). “It is not a shame to do little, it is a shame to do nothing, it is a shame to allow yourself to be afraid.”he declared.
Source: Gestion
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