Yulia Navalny has called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to release all political prisoners before the US-Russia summit in Alaska on the war in Ukraine, DPA reported, quoted by BTA.
Ahead of the long-awaited meeting between the US and Russian presidents, the widow of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who died in a penal colony last year, has called on Putin to release all political prisoners in Russia.
"This act will go down in history. Just do it," she said in a special video address to the participants in the meeting. Navalny stressed that there are currently about 1,000 political prisoners in Russia, with dozens of them serving long sentences in harsh conditions just for daring to protest the war in Ukraine.
Navalny's widow expressed hope that this meeting could be a historic moment with real results. She stressed that she is continuing her husband's work in the fight against Putin's authoritarian system, despite living in exile.
According to her, the lists of political prisoners are publicly available and a quick release is entirely possible. In her video address, she showed photos of some of the detainees.
For years, Alexei Navalny's team has been drawing attention to the plight of political prisoners in Russia and the appalling conditions in penal colonies, which often threaten their lives, DPA notes.
Navalny was cautious about what to expect from the meeting. She recalled that a ceasefire had been declared before, but this had never led to lasting peace, and hopes for an end to the war had been dashed many times.