Zhanna Nemtsova, the daughter of Russian opponent Boris Nemtsov, who was killed almost nine years ago near the Kremlin, said this Saturday that Alexey Navalny He was one of the most important opposition leaders, or even the most important leader of the 21st century, and now he does not see who can replace him.

“Yesterday I learned that Alexei Navalny was killed in prison. We need to fight the regime that did this. I would like to say that Alexei Navalny was one of the most important opposition politicians, if not the most important, in Russia in the 21st century,” he said at a panel at the Munich Security Conference on the future of Russia.

Nemtsova emphasized that Navalny was the man who formulated the political agenda to resist Russian President Vladimir Putin, even behind bars and in prison, he continued to be the one who offered new options and ways to fight the regime.

“There is no other person like him in the political arena, and I don’t see anyone who could take his place,” he said.

Nemtsova claimed that “The murder of Alexei Navalny is a terrorist attack” to scare not only Russians in the country, but also to demonstrate to the exiled opposition that “the risks increase” if they oppose Putin.

For this reason, he expressed support for those Russian citizens who took to the streets across the country on Friday and Saturday to lay flowers at monuments dedicated to political repression.

According to the organization OVD-Info, which protects the rights of detainees, at least 359 citizens were arrested in 32 cities of Russia from Friday to Saturday for events in memory of Navalny.

“Now even this simple action is very dangerous” and is an act of “great courage,” Nemtsova emphasized.

Nemtsova, who heads the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom, also spoke about the timing of Navalny’s murder and the possibility that it was linked to the great popularity of Boris Nadezhdin, the only Kremlin candidate opposed to the war. which the Central Election Commission of Russia registration for presidential elections was not allowed March in Russia.

“I think the large amount of support (Nadezhdin) that we saw, more than 10% that he received, surprised and scared the powers that be. When they saw the queues of people wanting to support Nadezhdin (to register his candidacy), they got scared,” he said.

“We are now entering a new era, the era of fighting the regime without Alexei Navalny. You may be wondering who might take your place.who can become the new leader,” but there are few options, he said.

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Nemtsova covered the movement of the wives of soldiers mobilized in Russiaas one of its leaders the day before called on people to take to the streets and lay flowers in Navalny’s honor.

He recalled that everyone was also taken by surprise by the popularity acquired by the deceased former head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozin, who led the uprising in June 2023 against the Russian military leadership before dying in a freak plane crash.

All of this “shows that we really can’t make predictions,” the woman said.

Irina Shcherbakova, a historian and one of the founders of Memorial International, which for three decades documented the Stalin-era purges and then repressions in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and which was dissolved by Russian justice in 2022, noted that the Russians who laying flowers to express their opinion about “this murder” of Navalny is not a coincidence. erect monuments to the victims political repression.

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He stated that the conditions of detention in which Navalny had to endure, who spent a total of 300 days in punishment cells, are “comparable to the practice of Stalinism.”

He agreed with Nemtsova that “The future is uncertain” in Russia, but she was convinced that, tragic as it may sound, “Russia’s future depends on whether Putin wins or loses the war in Ukraine. (EFE)