The political path of Yulia Navalnaya
Three days after the news of her husband Alexei Navalny's death, his wife reached out with a video message. Yulia Navalnaya sits in a darkened room, her face is warmly lit, and what she says in about eight minutes is nothing less than a declaration of war on the Moscow regime. "Putin killed my husband, the father of my children, the most valuable thing I had," she says in a calm voice.
And it is the announcement of a political path. A new one, her own. And one that has already begun, that of her husband, which she wants to continue, said Navalnaya. The 47-year-old says several times that she stood by his side for years, at events, elections, poisonings - an allusion to the Russian secret service's attack on her husband with the nerve agent Novichok in 2020. She also announces that she has the names and will publish faces of those who committed the crime.
Her husband, she says, was prepared to give his life. She doesn't have the right to give up. Political analyst Tatjana Stanovaya wrote on Friday: »Navalnaya will become a political figure whether she wants it or not. Your word now takes on a special meaning and weight in the opposition environment.
Will Russians care, will the Kremlin be bothered by it? The country is facing pseudo-elections and the powerful man in Moscow wants to be crowned the winner undisturbed. Even if neither Navalny's death nor his widow's declaration of war will have a direct impact on the "election," they both come at a "politically sensitive moment," as my colleague Christian Esch, who has long reported for SPIEGEL from Moscow, writes. “Every election in Russia is traditionally a moment of extreme nervousness in the system; after all, not only an election victory has to be guaranteed, but an overwhelming triumph has to be staged,” says Christian.
Shortly after the publication of Yulia Navalnaya's video, images circulated from Brussels, where she was received by EU Council President Charles Michel and EU Foreign Affairs Representative Josep Borrell.
You can read more background information here: The victory of the empire over the citizen
Not exactly left-handed
Is this still a party or can it go away? According to my colleague Rasmus Buchsteiner, who does one of the toughest jobs in our country, namely observing developments on the left, the party must slowly get used to the idea of becoming an extra-parliamentary opposition.
The Left has a lot behind it: After Sahra Wagenknecht's group split off, it lost its parliamentary group status in the Bundestag in December. Now there is the group around Wagenknecht and 28 members of the Bundestag from the Left.
This process of separation alone required a lot of self-preoccupation. And it's still not over. New chairmen for this Bundestag group have now been elected in a closed meeting. Apparently that wasn't exactly a conflict-free affair either.
When I contacted Rasmus yesterday afternoon, he was sitting in front of the closed door of the exam room. »It was a busy day for the left. It dragged on for hours and there were appeals to pull themselves together. It was of little use,” says the colleague. In today's editorial he complains that the party doesn't know what it wants and can't make a fresh start.
Perhaps this was also due to the mustiness of the old premises in which the party held its retreat: in the publishing house of the “socialist daily newspaper” “Neues Deutschland”. Not exactly revolutionary.
You can find the SPIEGEL editorial here: This is how this left is finally abolishing itself
What's next for Julian Assange?
It's a never-ending story: The High Court in London is meeting again today because of the founder of the disclosure platform WikiLeaks and is negotiating whether Julian Assange can appeal again because of his extradition to the USA.
A quick reminder: In 2010, Assange was investigated in Stockholm for rape allegations; in 2012, he took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid being extradited to Sweden, which in turn would have extradited him to the USA - that was Assange's great concern. Under pressure from the Americans, the Ecuadorians ended their protection for the activist and he was imprisoned in London in 2019. The government under Boris Johnson ordered Assange's extradition to the USA in 2022, where he faces espionage charges.
In 2010, Assange revealed secret US documents that hinted at possible war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Reputable international media companies such as the New York Times, the Guardian and SPIEGEL were on board.
Normally we mostly report on how whistleblowers, whistleblowers and journalists in authoritarian states are persecuted when they expose abuses. However, the Assange case takes place entirely in Western democracies. Dealing with Assange pays into the account of those who have always considered the West to be untrustworthy and hypocritical.
You can read more background information here: Julian Assange faces 175 years in prison
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Today's starting question: What is the name of the highest mountain in Austria?
Winner of the day…
...is the tiny house project that invited people to “talk about Israel and Palestine” on Potsdamer Platz in the slipstream of the Berlinale.
The idea is simple and yet not: strangers come together in a small but protected space and talk about the war in Gaza with the help of moderators. It comes from Shai Hoffmann, a social entrepreneur and German Jew who has family in Israel. His Palestinian colleague Ahmad Dakhnous is also in the house. Together, as Hoffmann describes it, they wanted to create a space “in which one can be fallible and in which there is room for simultaneities.”
Another Israeli-Palestinian collaboration also premiered at the Berlinale at the weekend: the documentary “No other Land,” directed by an Israeli-Palestinian quartet, shows the destruction of a Palestinian community in the West Bank by the Israeli authorities.
You should definitely consider the idea of a tiny house. A house like this can be built with will alone, purely mentally, so to speak. In the end, it's about listening, understanding, overcoming your discomfort, and allowing for gray areas.
You can read more about the background here: »To this day I can hardly believe that I filmed that. It was a nightmare«
The latest reports from the night
Brazil summons Israeli ambassador:
The diplomatic dispute between Brazil and Israel continues: The trigger is a Holocaust comparison by President Lula. Now the South American country is igniting the next levels of escalation.
Women have to train much less than men to achieve the same health benefits:
400,000 people took part in the study over 20 years: A US-Chinese project examined the positive effects of sport, with a focus on life expectancy. The figures presented are impressive.
Prison sentence after raping a 14-year-old at Schlachtensee:
A 19-year-old has to go to prison for three years because he raped a teenager at Schlachtensee in Berlin. With the verdict, the court went well beyond the prosecutor's demands.
I would particularly like to recommend this text to you today:
Donald Trump allegedly wanted to encourage Russia to attack NATO countries. But does Russia actually want and can do that?
British historian and Russia expert Mark Galeotti believes this is very unlikely. In an interview with my colleague Ann-Dorit Boy, Galeotti says that Russia could take up to eight years to rebuild its military after the Ukraine war. In addition, the Kremlin is extremely cautious: "Putin is actually deeply risk-averse."
I wish you a good start to the day.
Yours, Özlem Topçu, deputy head of the foreign department