To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web
browser that
supports HTML5
video
A Russian TV host once dubbed the ‘most energetic Kremlin propagandist around’ has said Yulia Navalnya awaits the same fate as her husband.
Yulia Navalnaya has vowed to continue the opposition leader’s work advocating for a free and democratic Russia after Navalny died in an Arctic jail last week.
In the wake of his death, Navalany has been referred to as nothing more as ‘that man’, ‘that citizen’ or the ‘Berlin patient’ – a crude reference to his near-fatal dose of Novichok which he was treated in Germany for – by Russian state TV hosts.
Among them, Vladimir Solovyov described one of Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critics as ‘unwanted and forgotten’ and implied his death was tied to Western security services and his attorneys to coincide with the Munich Security Conference.
‘We know that when you talk about the dead, you should either say good things or the truth,’ Solovyov said on the Tuesday edition of his radio show Full Contact, translated by Russian Media Monitor.
‘The truth is simple: He was a Nazi.’
(He was not, by the way.)
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny (first row, second right) and his wife Yulia (Picture: Reuters)
To Solovyov, Navalany was behind a ‘totalitarian cult’ that ‘brainwashed poor young people’ which is ‘breeding perfect targets for recruitment by the Ukrainian intelligence services’.
In other words, he was an anti-corruption campaigner and criticised the Russian president.
‘Why is citizen Navalnaya not on the list? On which grounds is she not on the list? Did she encourage donations to the Ukrainian Nazis?’ Solovyov added, referring to the Ukrainian Army.
Solovyov, described by the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) as Russia’s ‘mouthpiece-in-chief’ said Navlany’s wife will undoubtedly face persecution.
He said: ‘Just like her husband, they will abandon her in Russia so that she gets imprisoned here. She already said and did enough to go to prison.’
‘The same fate awaits Navalanaya,’ Solovyov, who has also been the mouthpiece of the Russia-1’s Evening with Vladimir Solovyov since 2012, added. ‘If she comes to Russia, she will go to prison.’
Motormouth Vladimir Solovyov is a figure on the Russian state-owned airwaves (Picture: YouTube)
The anti-corruption campaigner’s death has touched off a wave of grief, sorrow and anger in Russia and beyond (Picture: Getty Images Europe)
Nalvany died, according to the Russian authorities, last Friday at the IK-3 penal colony, in Kharp in the Yamalo-Nenets region about 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow.
Long considered one of the toughest camps in Russia, the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation was serving a nearly decades-long sentence for, among other things, ‘extremism’ – charges campaigners said were largely fabricated.
His death has sparked finger-pointing on all sides. Putin cronies like Solovyov accused the West of playing a part, while Navalnaya said officials are waiting for traces of the nerve agent novichok to leave her husband’s body.
Solovyov is one of Putin’s most well-known simps. The US Department of State said the presenter ‘may be the most energetic Kremlin propagandist around today’.
More Trending
State officials say he’s best known for his ‘diatribes of anti-Western and anti-Ukraine disinformation, hatred, and vitriol on a daily basis’. Analysts suggest that the once independent journalist has ‘flip-flopped’ on some issues to align with Moscow.
He speaks. A lot. Solovyov broke the Guinness World Record in 2019 for ‘most hours of live television presented by a host in one week’. Having yapped for 25 hours, 53 minutes and 57 seconds.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.