In the video, Navalnaya also detailed her husband’s last days based on what she said was testimony by employees at the penal colony, which the BBC has not been able to verify.
According to her, on the day he died Navalny was taken out for a walk but felt ill. When he was taken back to his cell “he lay down on the floor, pulled his knees up, and started moaning in pain… then he started vomiting”.
“Alexei was having convulsions… the prison guards watched [his] agony through the bars of the cell window,” she said, citing the alleged testimonies.
An ambulance wasn’t called until 40 minutes after Navalny became ill, his widow said, and he died shortly after. Prison authorities later told his mother Lyudmila that her son had experienced “sudden death syndrome”. Later, state investigators said the death had been caused by a medical condition and arrythmia.
Navalny’s associates have shared previously unseen images on social media purporting to show his cell on the day he died and the tiny exercise yard where he was allowed out.
Vladimir Putin, who studiously avoided naming Navalny while he was alive, briefly referred to him a month after his death by stating that a person passing was “always a sad event”.
The Russian president also said he had agreed to a planned prisoner swap between Navalny and “some people” held in Western jails, on condition that Navalny did not come back to Russia.
“But such is life. There’s nothing to be done about it,” Putin said.
It is highly unlikely Moscow will issue any further comment on Navalny’s death.
His popularity and internet savviness long rattled the Kremlin, while senior figures were irritated by his investigations into high-profile government corruption.
With Navalny’s death Russia lost the last towering opposition figure who challenged Putin’s rule.
Many of his associates have been jailed or have fled Russia. Navalnaya herself faces arrest, and she and her two children live abroad.
The crackdown on civil society ramped up further following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and punitive new laws leading to mass arrests have muzzled any opposition.
In both life and death Navalny managed to draw out huge crowds onto the streets. Thousands of mourners turned out for his funeral in Moscow in March 2024 despite well-founded fears of a police crackdown.
No large opposition gatherings have taken place in Russia since.