Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, was presented with the Deutsche Welle Freedom of Speech Award in Berlin on Wednesday.
Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation was also recognized at the ceremony for its fight against the Russian government’s attempts to crack down on freedom of the press.
In her acceptance speech, Navalnaya said the foundation would continue its work despite her the death of her husband, who was widely seen as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s main opposition rival, in unexplained circumstances in a Siberian prison camp earlier this year.
Navalnaya said Putin “killed [her] husband Alexei Navalny, but he has not silenced his ideas.”
She warned against Russian misinformation and sabotage operations in the European Union ahead of European Parliament elections this week.
Putin is trying to impose his agenda, she said. “And time and again he succeeds,” she added.
“We will continue our fight,” Navalnaya promised, concluding: “We believe that freedom of speech will prevail over the poison of propaganda.”
German Finance Minister Christian Lindner was at the ceremony to present Navalnaya with the award.
He praised her as a “strong partner” of Navalny, whom Lindner described as a “super-spreader of free thought.”
“Like a virus, he was first isolated and then repressed in the most brutal way. In the end, the regime, I have no doubt, even murdered him,” Lindner said.
Lindner said that Putin’s time was running out. “In the long term, the will to be free will always prevail over oppression,” he added.
The event was the tenth edition of the award, which aims to draw attention to restrictions on freedom of speech and of the press across the world.
Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international public broadcaster, had its accreditations to work in Russia withdrawn in 2022. Its office in Moscow closed and transferred to the Latvian capital Riga.
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