Yulia, the wife of Alexei Navalny, will meet with EU officials in Brussels today

The widow of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Yulia Navalnaya, will meet with European foreign ministers on Monday in Brussels, according to the head of the EU’s foreign policy department.

After more than three years in jail, the 47-year-old Kremlin critic passed away in an Arctic prison on Friday, sparking outcry and condemnation from Western politicians and his supporters.

Josep Borrell said late on Sunday on X, previously Twitter, “I will welcome Yulia Navalnaya at the EU Foreign Affairs Council on Monday.”

He said that “EU Ministers will honor” Navalny’s memory and “send a strong message of support to freedom fighters in Russia.”

Having not seen her husband in two years, Navalnaya had said that she personally blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin and urged the whole community to “unite and defeat this evil, terrifying regime”.

Navalnaya’s remarks “will help all of us Europeans to understand even better what kind of violent system we have to confront and contain in Ukraine,” according to Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.

“It will make us feel the threat that weighs on Russian citizens and on every region of our Europe, a continent to which violence, brutality, and war have been shamefully and irresponsibly returned,” Tajani said in a press release.

Being the most well-known opposition figure in Russia, Navalny acquired a sizable following by fighting against corruption under Putin.

After her husband was poisoned and laid in a coma, Navalnaya had supported him and flown him out of the country and back to Moscow with him, sparking widespread outrage in Russia.

Since then, even when he was sentenced to 19 years in jail, she had held onto the notion that she would see him again.

Putin, who is renowned for never using Navalny’s name, made no comment on the passing on Friday while visiting the Urals.

However, Western leaders’ responses to Navalny’s murder were deemed “absolutely unacceptable” and “hysterical” by Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Friday.

According to EU sources last week, discussions to officially begin a naval operation to assist defend international commerce in the Red Sea from assaults by Yemen’s Huthis were also on the agenda for Monday’s meeting of EU foreign ministers.