In October 2023, Daria Navalnaya gave a short TED talk about what she learned from her father Alexei Navalny.

She said, “I miss him every single day. I’m scared that my father won’t be able to come to my graduation ceremony or walk me down the aisle at my wedding. But if being my father’s daughter has taught me anything, it is to never succumb to fear and sadness.”

She was right. He won’t be there when she graduates from Stanford University or when she gets married.

If you listen to her 11-minute talk, you will perhaps understand why he believed he had to return to Moscow after he was hospitalized in Berlin and nearly died. He knew he would be arrested, but he couldn’t back down. He was not afraid.

I still wish he had stayed in the West and remained a thorn in Putin’s side. I wish he were alive to warn the world about the corrupt psychopath who controls Russia. But I don’t understand his heroism. I don’t have his courage.

But his daughter understands. His wife too, who spoke through her grief at the Munich Security Conference soon after learning of his death.

As Telegram exploded with the news of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s death, his wife, Yuliya Navalnaya was in Germany — about to attend the annual Munich Security Conference surrounded by world leaders and defense officials, and within view of countless television cameras.

Navalnaya has generally sought to avoid the spotlight, to shield her two children from the fallout of her husband’s political work and to deny his tormentors in the Kremlin, including President Vladimir Putin, the satisfaction of ever seeing her cry. But as she took to the stage and delivered a dramatic, surprise statement, grief and worry were etched across her swollen face, and her eyes were tearful and blotchy.

She said she was not certain if the reports of her husband’s death were true. But, her voice trembling with fury, she said: “I want Putin, his entourage, Putin’s friends and his government to know they will pay for what they have done to our country, to our family and my husband. And that day will come very soon.”

She noted that Navalny — who had spoken out forcefully against Russia’s war in Ukraine and called for reparations to be paid from Russia’s oil and gas revenue — would have wanted to be in Munich, were he in her place.

“He would be on this stage,” Navalnaya said, adding, “I want to call the world, everyone who is in this room, people around the world, to together defeat this evil. Defeat this horrible regime in Russia.”