World
Navalnaya tells MEPs to 'stop being boring' to defeat Putin's regime
The European Parliament needs to “stop being boring” if it wants to stand up to Vladimir Putin, Yulia Navalnaya told the hemicycle on Wednesday.
“If you really want to defeat Putin, you have to become an innovator. You have to stop being boring,” Navalnaya said in a speech to lawmakers in Strasbourg.
“You cannot hurt Putin with another resolution or another set of sanctions that is no different to the last one,” she added.
“You cannot defeat him by thinking he is a man of principle who has morals and rules. He is not like that. and Alexei realised that a long time ago. You are not dealing with a politician, but with a bloody monster.”
Her speech, interrupted several times by applause, came less than two weeks after her husband Alexei Navalny, considered Putin’s fiercest political foe, died in an Arctic penal colony following years of persecution at the hands of the Kremlin.
The exact circumstances of his passing remain unclear. The EU has directly pinned responsibility for his death on Putin’s regime.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the bloc has imposed thirteen packages of sanctions aimed at suffocating Russia’s ability to modernise its economy and cutting access to critical goods used on the battlefield in Ukraine.
High Representative Josep Borrell has vowed to rename the EU’s human rights sanctions regime in Navalny’s honour.
But Navalnaya said the EU needs less symbolism and more targeted investigations focused on Putin’s friends and associates, warning that Putin was continuing to hide money – and power – in EU capitals through organised crime networks.
The Anti-Corruption Foundation, the NGO that Navalny founded, has compiled a list of thousands of Russian officials, oligarchs and propagandists considered Putin’s “bribetakers and warmongers,” many of whom remain spared from Western sanctions.
The widow and activist also pleaded with MEPs not to give in to war fatigue or advocate for peace negotiations with the Russian President.
“There is much exhaustion, much blood, much disappointment, and Putin has gone nowhere,” she explained, adding that the “public murder” of her husband has shown that Putin is “capable of anything” and that “you cannot negotiate with him.”
Russia’s war has had a seismic effect across the continent, sparking a revival of the NATO military alliance and forcing the EU to reignite its dormant enlargement policy to prepare Ukraine’s path to membership,
But scepticism among some political camps about the bloc’s financial and military support to Kyiv, coupled with a faltering Ukrainian counter-offensive, means Brussels is under pressure to do more to show its commitment to Ukraine’s victory.
The prospective return of Donald Trump to the White House means the bloc is gearing up to bolster its defence capacities to back Ukraine without its trans-Atlantic partner.
‘Work with us’
Alexei Navalny was 47 when he died in the Arctic penal colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism. His death has dealt a blow to pro-democracy Russians, an estimated 400 of whom were detained for laying flowers and lighting candles in his memory in Russian cities.
Associates of Navalny have claimed Putin ordered his assassination just days before a planned prisoner swap, which would have seen him and two US citizens exchanged for Vadim Krasikov, a convicted Russian assassin serving a life sentence in Germany.
The EU, which has long saluted Navalny’s unwavering fight for Russian democracy, repeatedly denounced Putin’s regime for its systemic repression of government critics in the years prior to the invasion of Ukraine.
But the critic’s death has shed light on the futility of those efforts, as Putin has continued to deepen his autocracy.
ADVERTISEMENTNavalnaya told the hemicycle that there are “tens of millions” of Russians who oppose the Kremlin but who are unable to express their resistance due to fear.
“We must not persecute them,” she said. “On the contrary, you must work with them, with us.”
Navalnaya has vowed to continue her husband’s crusade and become the new face of Russia’s stifled opposition, galvanising pro-democracy Russians to stand up to the regime.
“Putin must answer for what he has done to a neighbouring peaceful country, and Putin must answer for everything he has done to Alexei. My husband will never see what the beautiful Russia of the future will look like. But we must see it, and I will do,” she told the Parliament.
“I will do my best to make his (Alexei’s) dream come true. The evil will fall and the beautiful future will come,” she added.
ADVERTISEMENTThe Parliament’s president, Roberta Metsola, said that the “hope” Alexei represented remains “as bright as ever.”
“The pillars of autocracy always crumble under the weight of its own corruption and people’s desire to live freely,” Metsola said.
Navalnaya confirmed that her husband’s funeral is due to take place in Moscow’s southeast Maryino district on Friday afternoon. She is unsure whether the funeral will be peaceful, or whether Russian police will be present to detain the mourners, she said.
World
Argentinian flight instructor jumps to death from plane, 22-year-old student forced to land alone
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A flight instructor jumped to his death out of a small aircraft over Argentina, forcing the student pilot he was teaching to land the plane herself.
Leandro Andrés Bertazzo, 42, was on board a two-seat Cessna 150G on Saturday when he made the decision to jump out over the province of Córdoba, according to CNN, which cited its Argentinian affiliate TN.
“He made this tragic decision on board an aircraft with another person by his side,” Eduardo Álvarez, director of the Flying Parrot Córdoba flying school where Bertazzo worked, told TN. “It’s impossible to think about it or understand it, but the human mind is so complex.”
An undated photo of Leandro Andrés Bertazzo, a 42-year-old pilot who jumped to his death from a plane on Saturday, July 4 in Argentina. (Instagram/Leandro Bertazzo)
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Rosario, the 22-year-old student, later told authorities that Bertazzo told her, “You know what you have to do, carry on,” before taking off his gear, opening the door and leaping out, according to Álvarez.
Opening the door of a plane midair is incredibly difficult. Álvarez said it would be akin to trying to open the door of a car traveling 124 miles per hour.
Cessna 150m FRA150M climbing out after take-off with flaps deployed and hills behind. (aviation-images.com/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
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Álvarez said that Rosario managed to land the plane safely, despite being in “complete shock.” There was no damage to the plane, according to TN.
Álvarez noted that Bertazzo had gone on a flight with another student earlier in the day.
A view from the main road of the flight school Bertazzo worked at, Flying Parrot Córdoba. (Google Maps)
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Álvarez also told TN that Bertazzo had visited a psychiatric institute, something that was only known by his family prior to his death.
Prosecutors in Córdoba will lead the investigation into Bertazzo’s death. The plane he jumped from is now in police custody.
Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn denies damaging US President Donald Trump’s Washington, DC reflecting pool renovation.
Published On 9 Jul 2026
A former US Olympian has pleaded not guilty to vandalising the newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, in a case that has drawn national attention amid accusations that the administration of US President Donald Trump is trying to shift blame for a troubled renovation.
David “Davey” Hearn, a 67-year-old three-time Olympic canoe racer, entered his plea in federal court on Thursday after prosecutors accused him of “maliciously” damaging the “American flag blue” lining installed at the bottom of the reflecting pool at Trump’s request ahead of celebrations taking place at Washington’s National Mall for the 250th anniversary of the United States’ independence on July 4.
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Federal prosecutors allege Hearn pulled at the liner on June 19, causing more than $1,000 in damage. He has been charged with destruction of government property, an offence that carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.
Hearn denied the allegations. He admitted he stopped at the pool during a bike ride, reached inside and touched a section of lining that was already peeling away, but that he did not remove or damage it. He told The Associated Press he let go when a park employee told him to stop.
Hearn’s lawyers argue the prosecution is an attempt by the Trump administration to deflect attention from what they describe as a botched renovation project.
“This indictment reflects the administration’s effort to shift blame for their own failures,” they said in a statement. “The justice system exists to determine facts, not to provide political cover.”
The 620-metre (2,030-foot) reflecting pool reopened in June after Trump ordered the new liner to be installed across the bottom. He said he was compelled to go ahead with the $14.7m renovation after a friend visiting from Germany called the pool dark and disgusting.
But within days, algae began to spread across the surface, the water turned chartreuse green, and sections of the liner began peeling away.
Experts have explained that the dark new coat of paint at the bottom of the pool would elevate the temperature and allow algae to grow, and that algae blooms in water are common at this time of year, especially in shallow, stagnant water like that of the pool.
Trump blamed the issues on vandals, claiming without evidence that “corrosive and destructive chemicals” were poured into the pool and that vandals “took some form of knife or blade” and put a long “gash into the beautiful facade”, although no one has been charged over those alleged acts.
The US president warned that anyone who allegedly damaged the pool could face long prison terms. “Please remember that there is a 10 year prison sentence for the destruction, or even the attempted destruction, of such things — Which will be fully enforced!” he wrote on Truth Social.
Last week, US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced the indictment against Hearn, accusing him of intentionally damaging the liner.
The US Department of the Interior has said that at least six people were arrested on suspicion of vandalising the pool in the weeks after it reopened. National Guard troops and US Park Police were deployed to protect the site, which was fenced off during July 4 celebrations.
Thursday’s hearing drew a packed courtroom, with dozens of supporters waiting outside after Hearn entered his plea.
The reflecting pool’s problems have continued, with Trump acknowledging it will need to be drained again so the damaged liner can be repaired.
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