For more than 16 years, Olga Mikhailova was a discreet but determined presence sitting at the side of Alexei Navalny, the best-known opponent to Vladimir Putin's Kremlin, in Russian courts. During that time, she shied away from sharing her thoughts with the press. "For him, the public statements, the political pursuits. For me, the pleading in court, the legal defense," she said. "He wanted me to talk to journalists. I kept telling him: each to their own job." But on the anniversary of Navalny's death – in circumstances shrouded in mystery, on February 16, 2024 in a prison in Russia's far north – she is choosing to speak out. Le Monde met with her in Paris.

She defends Navalny – himself a qualified lawyer, who was serving a 19-year prison sentence for "extremism" – unequivocally. She also wants to mobilize public opinion and European leaders around the fate of Navalny's other three lawyers who, on January 17, were sentenced in Russia to between three and five and a half years in prison, also on charges of "extremism". "A cruel and absurd sentence," said the 51-year-old lawyer, indignant but restrained.

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