Following her husband's unexpected passing last week in an isolated Arctic prison colony, Yulia Navalnaya has become the new face of Russia's opposition movement. To damage her reputation, a massive, organized, and sexist online disinformation campaign has surfaced.
Disinformation regarding Navalnaya's extramarital encounters, abortions, and indifference to her husband's passing is being extensively disseminated on Telegram channels, Russian state-run media, and social media accounts under the direction of organizations closely associated with the Kremlin.
Pro-Russian Campaign Targets Yulia Navalnaya
Yulia Navalnaya, wife of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, attends the Munich Security Conference (MSC), on the day it was announced that Alexei Navalny died at the prison service of the Yamalo-Nenets region where he had been serving his sentence, in Munich, southern Germany on February 16, 2024.
Reset, a London-based nonprofit that tracks disinformation campaigns, and Antibot4Navalny, a group of anonymous Russian researchers who track the online activity of Kremlin-linked trolls, shared details of the campaign with WIRED.
The campaign, which features doctored images and fake videos, is continuing to gain momentum as Navalnaya speaks out about Alexei Navalny's death and criticizes Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The campaign's primary goal is to portray Navalnaya as being unfaithful to her spouse by alleging she is having several relationships with well-known businesspeople and journalists.
The effort to discredit Navalnaya started weeks before her spouse passed away. A post claiming an affair between Navalnaya and Bulgarian journalist Hristo Grozev was released at the beginning of February on a German-language website.
The report was based on a purportedly created film by a former employee of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation. The accusations were based on pictures that seemed to be from Booking.com and included the names Grozev and Navalnaya.
The Reset researchers came to the conclusion that the video was uploaded by an Instagram account that is no longer active and that there are no users with that username on any other social media network. In a research on the campaign, the researcher stated, "No public information or any social media profiles appear with the face of the woman from the video, which likely means the video was AI-generated."
"It appears that the video was uploaded on a recently established Instagram account, which was promptly removed upon downloading the video, and was utilised solely to demonstrate that the account is a legitimate profile through the platform's interface," the researcher added.
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Disinformation Against Yulia Navalnaya
Moreover, Yulia Navalnaya shared a video on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, expressing her determination to carry on her late husband Alexei Navalny's political legacy despite his recent passing in a Russian penal colony.
Shortly after, numerous accounts on the platform began rapidly circulating photos of Navalnaya with another man on a beach, claiming that the widow had already moved on. However, Euronews discovered that the photo being circulated is actually outdated after conducting a reverse image search.
In August 2021, the Russian businessman Yevgeny Chichvarkin shared a photo on Instagram standing next to Navalnaya. Chichvarkin co-founded and previously owned Euroset, the pioneering Russian mobile phone distributor.
Currently working as a wine trader in London and running a restaurant, he has emerged as a vocal opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2009, he left Russia for the UK, and from 2010 onwards, he has contributed more than €100,000 to Alexei Navalny, as reported in a Time magazine article from two years ago.
The individual shared photos with Navanly, whom he referred to as a close friend, the day following his unexpected passing in an Arctic Circle detention facility. Chichvarkin has posted several photos on social media with his partner Tatiana Fokina, who co-owns a restaurant with him in London.
Another photo circulating on social media suggests that Navalnaya and Chichvarkin are in a relationship. This photo seems to capture her embracing Chichvarkin as he holds a cannabis joint.
"Navalny turning in his grave right now... His wife and her new boyfriend sending condolences," remarked one individual. Upon further investigation, The Cube discovered that the photo had been modified using the reverse image search tool.
The real image was captured in 2013, depicting Yulia Navalnaya hugging her spouse upon his release from prison. The original image has been altered with Chichvarkin's face and a cannabis joint added in.
Yulia Navalnaya has faced disinformation campaigns before. Both of these deceptive images have been making the rounds on the internet for years. However, this time, the information was shared on websites like Pravda, which is known for spreading pro-Kremlin disinformation.
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