_{Susanna Riethmüller, Editor-in-Chief of Brigitte, Yulia Navalnaya and Pinar Atalay. (Photo by Franziska Krug/Brigitte Award 2025 via Getty Images)}

On 9 October 2025, RTL Deutschland’s Ad Alliance hosted the second edition of the Brigitte Awards, in partnership with Brigitte – the former RTL Deutschland publishing brand, now part of Funke Mediengruppe since 1 October. Some 180 prominent guests from business, politics and media gathered at Bertelsmann’s premises in Berlin to celebrate women who inspire through their commitment, conviction and personality.

This year, five winners were recognised across five categories, and an honorary award was presented to Yulia Navalnaya by journalist Pinar Atalay, who delivered a heartfelt speech (read it in full below).

Yulia was honoured for her courage and political commitment: since the death of her husband Alexei Navalny, she has continued his work in exile. Today, Yulia is considered the most prominent face of the Russian opposition abroad.

Pinar Atalay also met Yulia for a separate interview, broadcast on RTL Nachtjournal Spezial on Saturday 11 October at 00:35.

See the list of winners here.

Dear Yulia Navalnaya,

So many images and words come to my mind when I think of you, your husband and your children. Images from the Charité hospital in Berlin. Your husband, exhausted, yet still full of strength. You and your children in hospital gowns, wearing masks, tired, yet filled with hope. Then the images of his arrest. The images from the prison camp. Images of Alexei Navalny, who never gave up and continued to reach out to the public.

And I remember all too clearly the moment I learned about your husband’s death. I was shocked. As journalists, we shared the breaking news among ourselves and then we had to deliver this bitter message on television. Today, you say yourself: He was poisoned. Two laboratories have confirmed it.

When you learned of his death, also through the news, you were sitting in a hotel room in Munich during the Munich Security Conference. And you knew instantly: Putin was responsible for this death. Right there at the conference, you called on the international community to “fight his terrible regime.”

Three days later, you released a video. “Privet, eto Yulia Navalnaya. Hello, this is Yulia Navalnaya,” you greeted the viewers. Just as your husband had always greeted his audience. The message of that video was clear: “I, Yulia Navalnaya, will continue Alexei’s work. I will stand up to Putin myself.”

Dear Yulia Navalnaya, this is not an easy legacy to bear. But you are also an extraordinary woman. You once said you never wanted to become a politician. You studied International Relations, worked at a bank, cared for your children, while your husband became Russia’s most prominent opposition figure.

And yet you were always passionately political. “She despises the people who have taken power in our country, perhaps even more than I do,” your husband once wrote about you in his memoirs.

Your children and you were spied on by the secret service. Your home was raided. Your husband was arrested again and again. Shortly before the widely noted poisoning attack on him, you yourself almost became a victim.

But you did not hide. You chose to remain visible. Quite deliberately so. “We wanted to break this system in which the wives of politicians, their families, their children remain invisible,” you once explained in an interview.

You are now the face of the opposition. In exile, not in Russia. Because you would immediately be imprisoned in your home country. Since July 2024 an arrest warrant has been issued against you for membership of an “extremist organisation.”

Working in opposition in exile is difficult. How do you reach those who have stayed behind? How can you give them courage not to give up?

Above all, you try through information. Together with Reporters Without Borders, you launched a television channel. I myself serve on its advisory board and we value your courageous work deeply. The channel is set to reach up to 61 million households by satellite, in Russia and beyond, providing people with independent information.

And the Anti-Corruption Foundation, founded by your husband founded and now chaired by you, continues its vital work, now from Lithuania.

But you also know that support from abroad is essential. And so you travel the world, meeting politicians. You address the public through videos. And your message is clear: “Do not be afraid of Putin. I am not afraid of him either.”

With this message, dear Yulia Navalnaya, you are a role model. As you said in February in a speech in Hamburg: “The dictators of the 21st century have become more cunning and more dangerous. They learn from each other and they learn from the mistakes of the past. They are rich and cruel. The fight against them carries risks. But there is no other way.”

Dear Yulia Navalnaya, in this fight, you are not alone. That is also what the Brigitte Honorary Award, which you receive today, stands for.

Stay courageous. Stay strong, indignant and full of hope.

I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart and now I kindly invite you onto the stage.