Alexei Navalny | X suspends and restores account belonging to the wife of the late Alexei Navalny

X, formerly known as Twitter and currently run by Elon Musk, has lifted the suspension of the account of Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of the late opposition leader and anti-Putin activist Alexei Navalny. Navalny reportedly died while serving time in a prison in the Arctic Circle after the Russian Prison service stated he became ill after going for a walk.

In a statement posted on its platform, X said their defence mechanism "mistakenly flagged" Navalnaya's account as violating their rules. It said: "Our platform's defense mechanism against manipulation and spam mistakenly flagged @yulia_navalnaya as violating our rules. We unsuspended the account as soon as we became aware of the error, and will be updating the defense."

Yulia has continually believed that the Kremlin were responsible for her husband’s death, including making claims that his body has yet to be returned due to a “poison” that may have led to his death not having left his system yet. The Kremlin has denied this allegation.

Navalny’s wife took X earlier today, urging the Kremlin to “give back Alexei’s body and let him be buried with dignity [and she] did not care how the killer’s press secretary comments on my words.” Yulia believes that she has evidence that will be provided shortly.

However, this morning Yuli Navalnaya’s X account was no longer accessible, with users of the social media platforms instead being met with a message stating that the account had been suspended due to violating “X rules.” The likelihood of this could no doubt be an algorithm or a bot picking up on some of the terminology used through her posts, but some are speculating that the Kremlin are also responsible for “silencing” the widow.

The suspension comes on the same day that Oleg Navalny, the brother of Alexei, has been placed on Russia’s wanted list, according to the TASS news agency. A criminal case has been opened against Oleg, despite his current whereabouts being unknown. Oleg was handed a one-year suspended sentence for breaking COVID restrictions after he was accused of calling for Russians to attend a rally for his brother.