Alexei Navalny’s widow Yulia’s X account has been restored after being blocked

The X account of Alexei Navalny’s widow Yulia was restored shortly after it was blocked, prompting an outcry on social media.

It is unclear why the social network, formerly Twitter, suspended Yulia Navalnaya’s account, but it appears to have been quickly unblocked.

An online search for the account initially showed an “account suspended” message, noting that X “suspends accounts that violate our rules,” but now a video message from her late husband’s mother appears.

The imprisoned dissident died on Friday in the Arctic Polar Wolf prison camp where he was being held by Russian authorities.

The Kremlin’s most prominent critic, Navalny, 47, was jailed in January 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he was recovering from a near-fatal nerve agent poisoning. His widow has vowed to continue his campaign, and in a speech on Monday called on the European Union not to recognise Russia’s March elections that are almost certain to give President Vladimir Putin another six years in office.

In a video message, Navalnaya called on her supporters to confront Putin with greater anger than ever and to rid Russia of what she called a corrupt elite of “bandits in uniform, thieves and murderers.”

“Do not recognize these elections,” Navalnaya told European Union foreign ministers at a meeting in Brussels on Monday, according to a transcript provided by a spokeswoman on Tuesday.

“A president who murdered his main political opponent cannot, by definition, be legitimate,” Navalnaya said.

Navalnaya has accused Putin of killing her husband and said evidence would be presented soon. Western leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, have blamed Putin for the death and warned of consequences, but have offered no evidence.

Putin has not yet commented publicly on Navalny’s death. The Kremlin denies any involvement and says Western claims that Putin was responsible are completely unacceptable.

Navalnaya, a 47-year-old mother of two, said she would help lead a shaken opposition to resist Putin, Russia’s supreme leader for more than two decades.

She said the reason authorities had still not handed over Navalny’s body to his mother Lyudmila, who travelled to the penal colony over the weekend, was because they were waiting for traces of a Novichok nerve agent to leave his body but had not provided any evidence to support her claim.

Lyudmila Navalnaya, 69, asked Putin to hand over her son’s body to him in a video message published on Tuesday. “Let me finally see my son,” she said.

Asked about Yulia Navalnaya’s claim that Putin killed her husband, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he could not comment given the circumstances.

“We will leave it uncommented. Of course, these are absolutely unfounded, heinous accusations against the Russian head of state. But given the fact that Yulia Navalnaya was widowed only a few days ago, I will leave it uncommented.”

Peskov said Navalnaya’s claim that a nerve agent had been used against her husband was unfounded.

“I am not familiar with this statement. But if it contains such words, they are nothing more than unfounded accusations, because they are not supported by anything, not confirmed,” he said.

Asked about police arrests of some people who laid flowers at monuments in Moscow and other cities after Navalny’s death, Peskov said police acted in accordance with the law.