23-05-2025
Western leaders are naive to think they can negotiate with Putin, says Navalny's widow
The widow of Alexei Navalny, the late Russian opposition leader, has said Western politicians are being 'naive' for thinking they can negotiate with Vladimir Putin.
Speaking at the Hay Festival in Powys, Wales, Yulia Navalnaya said Western leaders were wrong to think the Russian leader would abide by the same norms as democratic countries when it came to diplomatic talks.
The 48-year-old accused Donald Trump, the US president, of giving Putin more power by negotiating directly with him over the future of Ukraine.
The US president spent two hours on the phone with Putin on Monday, in a call Mr Trump described as 'excellent'.
Ms Navalnaya made the comments in an interview with Alastair Campbell, the former Labour spin doctor, who asked if world leaders were right to feel 'powerless' over Putin's grip on the country.
She replied: 'I'm not sure about that. I don't want to sound rude, but Western politicians are being a little bit naive because they think that they are having negotiations with Putin, that they can have diplomatic relations, that there are rules, which every democratic country has.
'But it's not. Putin's not living in a democratic country.'
' He has no rules,' she continued. 'And that's the problem. It's not about they don't understand him or they're doing the wrong steps. They are just trying to be politicians, normal politicians, which are chosen in normal democratic elections.'
Ms Navalnaya met with Joe Biden, Mr Trump's predecessor, in February 2024, days after her husband was killed in a Russian prison.
Reflecting on their meeting, the mother-of-two said she felt 'grateful' to have met the former president and said her family's situation 'touched him a lot'.
Asked how she felt seeing Mr Biden's successor supposedly echo Kremlin talking points, she said: 'Trump, you can like him or not, but he's elected president of a big country. He participated in real elections. He won these elections. And all his negotiations with Putin gives Putin, who's really a tyrant, more power.'
She added: 'During the last few years, nobody had been meeting with him. He was just sitting, he was scared to go anywhere because there is war, because he could be arrested somewhere. Now… all these negotiations give him again more power.'
