In the following days after news of Navalny’s death broke, Solovyov shared more content intended to suggest Navalny was having an affair, including an altered image showing Navalny Varnia embraced Russian entrepreneur Evgeny Chichvarkin, who has funded Navalny’s work in the past.
The original photo, taken in 2013, shows Navalnaya hugging her husband after he was released from prison. This doctored image has been circulating for several years, and researchers at Reset found an example of it being shared online in 2021. The fake image has been widely debunked by fact-checkers.
However, after Navalny’s death, the photo took on new life and was shared widely on X, where it has been viewed more than 1 million times, as well as on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Russian websites. Social media platform Vkontakte. It has also been used on numerous Russian blogs and websites to amplify pro-Kremlin disinformation in multiple European languages.
A non-fabricated photo showing Navalnaya standing on a beach with Chichivarkin was also shared to support false claims that the two were having an affair.
Navalnaya also said she was happy to be the wife of a politician, not a politician. She was thrust onto the world stage after her husband’s death, speaking at the influential Munich Security Conference within hours of his death being announced. Last week, she spoke to EU leaders before flying to San Francisco, where she met with U.S. President Joe Biden.
Global recognition also comes with its share of problems. Account X, which she created last week, was suspended after Navalnaya amassed 100,000 followers in just three days after the platform’s automated system triggered an alert. As she worked to restore her account, others on the platform tried to undermine her campaign for justice for her husband by sharing a video that claimed Navalnaya pretended to be sad about her husband’s death.
The fake video bears the logo of the American Psychological Association (APA) and features footage of best-selling author and American psychologist Paul Ekman How to tell if someone is lying. The video, which appears to be taken from the APA’s official account’s Instagram Story, features a statement from Aikman saying Navalnaya’s grief over her husband’s death was simulated. However, no such video exists on the group’s social media profiles or on its website. A spokesman for Ekman later told an independent Russian news outlet that his job “does not include consulting on personal, legal or political matters.”
Also on X are accounts associated with the Russian Doll influence campaign, which targeted journalists and fact-checking organizations and was exposed by Antibot4Navalny researchers earlier this year. Accounts associated with the group have been posting videos claiming Navalnaya had an abortion last month.
One account reviewed by WIRED that was part of the campaign responded to dozens of posts from European and U.S. news organizations on Yulia Navalnaya had an abortion in January 2024 at a private clinic in Germany. “None of this is true.