now on bbc news, the interview: yulia navalnaya. alexei navalny was a charismatic and popular russian opposition leader, an anti—corruption activist, a passionate believer in a free russia, a thorn in president putin's side whose videos reached millions, including his claims about putin's $1 billion palace on the black sea. poisoned by a deadly nerve agent, novichok, in 2020, navalny was flown to germany for treatment. are you nervous? no, not at all. after he returned to russia, navalny was arrested, tried and imprisoned. he died in one of the country's harshest penal colonies. putin is responsible. his wife, yulia navalnaya, believes he was murdered.

now navalny�*s memoir, patriot, is being published. it includes never before seen prison diaries about his brutal treatment. everybody can see what a high price he was ready to pay. i meet yulia navalnaya to hear their story — a story about politics, freedom and love, her hopes and fears for her country and whether she would stand as president of russia. well, yulia, thank you very much for doing this interview. it is eight months since your husband alexei navalny died in a russian prison. it's been, i imagine, the most horrendous year, a horrendous few years. and i want to ask firstjust how you are, how the children

are, how you are coping with what's happened? thank you for having me, first of all. er... as you understand, i am asked this question very often, but i never know how to answer still. i don't have the right answer. everything has changed in my life. changed in ourfamily life. everything has changed in our children life. i feel myself, very busy. a lot of meetings, a lot of things about publishing the book. a lot of everything new in my life. er... probably, it helps me to be ok. i would call it ok. of course, nothing will be the same like it was even last year. er...

even while alexei was in prison, ifelt, you know, all this connection all the time and all these letters, very supporting letters. er... he was really not just a husband. he was the best friend. he was... ..the best man i have ever met. and, of course, it's very difficult without him. and the, i think the... the biggest thing which i miss is that... ..i want to share with him a lot of the things which are going on, and i know that there is no possibility to write him these letters. and alexei died on february the 16th, 2024, in one of russia's most brutal prisons in the arctic circle. and the russian authorities, after your husband's death,

said it did not have a criminal nature, as they put it. what do you believe happened to your husband? i believe that vladimir putin is answering for the death and for the murder of my husband. we do have some evidence. what evidence do you have? because i know there was a report in the insider and leaked documents. as you know, anti—corruption foundation, very famous, our anti—corruption and other investigations, so it's very important for me. you know, i would like to come with the whole picture of what happened, notjust with the random documents. because there were documents, leaked documents, to the insider that appeared to show that he had sharp pains... there were some, but as i told, i would love to show how we can do the whole picture of what happened. and it's very important for me to come with this investigation. probably it will take a lot

of time because, as you said, everything happened very far from everything. he was in prison. he was in this cell alone. so, of course, it's very difficult to investigate all this. he writes in his book, "there's one specific madman "named vladimir putin and sometimes something "twists in his brain. "he writes a name down on a piece of paper "and says, kill him." when you say president putin answers for your husband's death, is that what you mean? that president putin ordered... of course. ..this? i mean that he ordered this. and we've seen this situation with poisoning in 2020 and investigation had showed pretty clear that my husband was poisoned by secret service from russia. so there are no doubt that it happened again

because he wasn't. .. even from prison, he was very loud, and he was the strongest opponent of vladimir putin. your husband was reported to have been, the plan was that he would be part of a prisoner exchange, a prisoner swap, that did then go ahead after his death. and i saw an interview that president putin gave where he said essentially, he'd agreed to it, that, yes, someone had come to him and said, "we should swap "alexei navalny." and he said, "i agree." and, you know, he says it's unfortunate. when you saw what president putin said, what did you think? that he lies, because he always lies. er... and also, as you quoted my husband, you never know now what is in his mind. er... whom he wants to poison or whom he wants to kill, or when he wants to start

the war. he thinks that he can do anything. and it's very important to remember about this. that's why all my, all the time, all my thoughts, that when i see vladimir putin, that he lies. and did you at the time know that alexei might be part of a prisoner exchange? did you know anything about that? of course i knew about these negotiations, and i knew that he could be part of this prisoner exchange. and did he know? no. no, he didn't know. and do you think the reason why he died is because vladimir putin was not ever going to let him get on that exchange? i think that... ..it could be so. you never know what's in putin's mind, but i think that one day he decided that he would never release my husband.

now, the book contains diaries that alexei wrote in prison while he was still allowed to have a pen and paper, because i know it got harder and harderfor him to even write. these diaries have never been seen before, certainly publicly. when did you first see them? how did you feel reading your husband's prison diaries? there were some kind of days in the first year when i got from time to time these diaries, and i appreciate that they are with us now. but still we exchanged, when it was possible, a lot of letters. so i knew about his conditions much more than all people around. and i knew even before the diaries that he was tortured. he was in awful conditions

in prison, and he was starving. and in the book... ..we read about him spending 295 days in solitary confinement. can you explain, 295 days is a very, very long time to spend in solitary, and the impact that that would have had on him, that did have on him physically and psychologically? it's difficult to answer how it influenced on him physically and psychologically because, er, since february 2022, i never had the possibility to talk with him. but... they cancelled his visits? they cancelled everything? yes. but you are right that all these conditions were just awful. and usually, the normal practice is punishment just for two weeks, and it is the most

severe punishment. and my husband spent there almost one year. and itjust very small room, two or three square metres. er... there is nothing in it. the, er... you are not able to use the bed during the day, so you're not able to lie. and everybody knew that my husband has problems with his back. there is just one stool, and he was allowed to keep one book and he was allowed to spend, the last year, he was allowed to spend less than one hour a day writing letters and working with documents.

what's incredible in the book, in the excerpts, is how he manages to keep his humour. he really, truly laughed at this regime and at vladimir putin. that's why vladimir putin hated him so much. and he even manages to make jokes when he's writing the book about how it will sell more, sell better if he dies.

i think it's his superpower to laugh at all these people, to laugh at the regime, to be stronger, even from prison, to be stronger than they are. and yet he was clearly brutalised by a system, you know, getting harsher and harsher. and do you worry that in the end, that system would have crushed him or did crush him? i never worry about him. i am absolutely confident. that is the point why finally, they decided to kill him. because theyjust realised that he will never give up.

that's the reason they wanted to change him mentally. they wanted to beat him mentally again, keeping him almost one year in this solitary confinement to show him that everybody forgot, forget about him, that he is alone. but he knew that a lot of people support him. if we go back in time a little bit, you mentioned it earlier, alexei was poisoned with novichok, a nerve agent, in siberia, back in 2020. i think actually, that was the first time i was aware of you, that you were fighting the russian authorities in that hospital. we saw you so strong, coming out to fight for him. thank you.

he was eventually evacuated to a german hospital for treatment and you decided, the pair of you, once he was better, the decision was to go back to russia in january 2021. i know you've been asked this question many times, but you went back, even though he knew the regime had already tried to kill him. just explain why to people watching, why did he go back? it's not about we decided. it's about that... ..you believe the person with whom you live so many years, you believe in this person, you believe in his beliefs, you know that he is doing the right things. and at that moment, you just realise that there couldn't be any discussion. you just need to support him. i knew that he wants to come back to russia, to be

with his supporters. he... i knew that he wanted to be an example for all these people with his courage, with his bravery. but i never asked him to stay. i understand that it sounds sometimes very strange because i am his wife. but i knew this from the time when he was in hospital that he will come back. applause i really wasn't scared. and it wasn't for me something uncertain.

it was for me about coming back home. just talk to me about what you were, what you were thinking, what you were expecting. are you just not allowing your brain to go to a place which says, "we might land here, we may be, he may be "arrested, and they may kill him because they've tried "already?" are you not even letting your brain get there? er... i never let my brain think that he might be killed. of course, i knew that possibility that he could be imprisoned... ..in the airport or very soon. this possibility was rather high.

he was funny, as usual. and the thing is, i'm very happy with this feeling. i don't want to cry. i don't want to be sad while i watch at all these... she sighs his pictures, his videos. if he smiles orjokes on this video, it makes me smile and joke. it's a good memory. i'm happy that he lived such a life, that he left a lot of such memories about him. what shines out for me from this book, one of the many things, is his love for you. he does talk about a time when you did meet, when he was in prison, and you're talking, i think, in a corridor or somewhere, so nobody can hear and the cameras won't catch it. can you remember that and how you felt?

i do remember. and i think... ..the great thing is that he remembered about it.

it wasn't difficult for me to say this to him. it wasn't like these words, they were not just supporting words. it was really like i felt. and he's imprisoned and, er... ..of course, i thought that, less at that time, more when they transfer him to this arctic prison, that he, that they might kill him, and they did it. bell tolls i'm very grateful to all these incredible people

who obviously shared his views, who obviously shared his beliefs and who are still inside the russia and... ..in some cases, different cases, doing everything they can to make this regime fall as soon as possible. and you've now taken on the role that your husband had in the anti—corruption foundation. you face arrest if you go back to russia. can you see yourself returning while putin is in power? when putin is in power? for sure, not, unfortunately. because i want to live in russia. i was born in moscow, our children were born in moscow. we spent all the... i spent all my life,

my family, with alexei, spent all our life in moscow. it's very important for me to come back. of course it's not possible while putin is in power. but i hope one day all this regime will fall and i will come back. putin is capable of anything... and do you see yourself as a politician now in the way that alexei, your husband alexei navalny was? can you do you want to try and garner the kind of support that he did? yes, i do. er, and there are a lot of people who support me, and i want also to be supportive to them back. there are a lot of... despite a lot of people are in exile. of course, millions of alexei supporters, they are still in russia, they live under huge repressions, oppressions,

and it's very important for me to keep a kind of connection with them, because those people didn't afraid to come to the funeral. didn't afraid to come to my husband, to come to my husband's grave every day, still after eight months or later. there are a lot of flowers and people come every day. how can change happen in russia? unfortunately, i'm not a magician. i don't know the special secret. i think that if anybody in the world knew the right thing, what to do to make these changes, changes happen as soon as possible,

somebody would use it. but my message is that we need to do... if you are not able to do more, everybody needs to do small things every day and then more people will do these small things every day, then sooner these changes will come. and can you see yourself standing ever to be president of russia? is that your goal now? my goal is to do all this and to help to make all these changes happen. if i will come back to russia, i will participate in the elections. as a candidate? as a candidate. and are you confident that your name is out there, that alexei's name is out there? because many people living in russia, you know, it seems as if, because of the clampdown and because he's been killed,

actually, you're not visible in russia any more. it's not about me, it's not about that my husband was killed. there is no politics in russia right now. nobody is visible. the people who are visible, they are just... ..supporters of vladimir putin's regime. you can happen to be on tvjust if you support vladimir putin. i don't want to call him enemy. i think that he doesn't even deserve it. but my, er, political opponent, of course, is vladimir putin, and i am trying to do and i will do everything to make his regime fall as soon as possible.

and let's talk about president putin on the world stage. do you think the international community's response has been enough? if you're asking about the response, i don't think there was any response. to alexei's death? yes. there were some sanctions on some prison guards from this arctic prison. and i think it's a kind of a joke to his memory. what did you want to happen? what do you want to happen now? what would make the difference? i would love the best way, which i'm waiting for, putin will be in prison. i want him to be in prison. not somewhere in the hague. i don't want him in prison somewhere abroad with computer, nice food, enough food, sitting just in a room, clean room. i want him to be in prison,

in russian prison. and it's notjust about... i want him to be in the same conditions like alexei was. but it's very important for me. it's also very important for me that he will see one day how... ..what conditions he brought our country. and it's his fault because he just took this power and for almost 25 years, we don't have any changes. but are you saying the international community could put him in prison? is that where you think that will come from? or what do you want from the international community? what can they do? i think that they need to be, they need to be less afraid of him. i think that, still, they think that there is... ..a way that putin do

something even worse. that's why they sometimes too afraid to be too strong with him. i don't think it's a point. if to speak about sanctions... ..they should be turned exactly to putin and his inner circle and to the government which exists now and which helps putin to help all this regime, which helps putin to continue this war with ukraine. in the documentary made about your husband, he was asked what his message to the russian people would be if he was killed. and he says — not give up. do you have a message for the russian people? it's very difficult to find the other words which, er... ..which alexei said

in the movie. in russian: yulia navalnaya, thank you so much. yulia navalnaya, thank you so much. thank you.

live from london, this is bbc news. iran says it has to defend itself, after overnight air strikes by israel but also recognises its responsibilities towards regional peace and security.

us presidentjoe biden said it appeared israel had only struck military targets in iran, amid growing calls for de—escalation from around the world. iran should not respond. we will continue to work with allies to de—escalate the situation across the region. the scene live at a polling station in georgia, as the vote comes to an end. observers say there have been irregularities in the polls. thousands of supporters of far—right wing activist tommy robinson gather in central london for a planned protest. in separate action, an anti—racism demonstration is under way. in other news, with less than two weeks to go until the us election, beyonce endorses kamala harris�* bid to become president. i am not here as a celebrity. i am not here as a politician. i am here as a mother. cheering