Elon Musk's Twitter suspends account of Alexei Navalny's widow

Twitter on Tuesday suspended the account of Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny.

According to Sky News, it is not clear why Navalnaya's account was suspended, and her latest posts were demands to the Russian government to return her late husband's body.

The account was suspended for roughly an hour, though as of this writing, it appears to be back online.

Twitter CEO Elon Musk has a long history of attacking American foreign policy when it comes to aiding Ukraine in its war against Russia, although it's not known at this point if Musk had any role in the decision to suspend Navanaya's account.

The death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has further diminished a rapidly shrinking Russian opposition, which has seen its members assassinated, sentenced to lengthy prison terms or forced into exile as Russian President Vladimir Putin makes it clear he will not tolerate challenges to his regime.

It was widely feared that Alexei Navalny was risking his life by positioning himself as Putin’s most vocal critic in an increasingly repressive Russia, even challenging him for the presidency in 2018.

Navalny narrowly survived being poisoned with novichok – a group of nerve agents developed by the Soviet Union – in 2020 and spent months recuperating in Germany. He earned admiration from Russia's disparate opposition for voluntarily returning to Russia the following year.

His death comes just a day before the official launch of campaigning ahead of a new round of presidential elections set for March 15-17.

Putin oversaw changes to the constitution in 2021 that will allow him to run for two more six-year terms, meaning he could stay in power until 2036. Putin is already the longest-serving Kremlin leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who died in 1953.

On December 8 Putin announced his candidature for re-election and is widely expected to win, given the lack of political alternatives and the Kremlin's iron grip on the state apparatus.

With AFP.