Ukrainian activists on November 12 disrupted a speech by Yulia Navalnaya at an IT summit in Lisbon by setting off air-raid sirens and shouting "Stop the war" before Navalnaya said she opposes the war and told them their enemy was the same as hers.
Navalnaya was delivering her speech on Dictators and Digital Dissent at the Web Summit when several people in the audience set off the air-raid sirens in an attempt to drown out her words. They then began chanting "Stop Russia!" and "Stop the war!" in English.
The organizers of the action said its purpose was to remind the participants of the conference about the war in Ukraine and the inadmissibility of inviting citizens of the aggressor country to an international conference.
Navalnaya responded to the disruption by inviting a representative of the Ukrainian activists to come up on stage and ask a question. The activist who went to the stage asked whether she supports the war against Ukraine.
Navalnaya said she opposes the war and the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin, telling the activists, "We have one enemy. And Ukrainians do not need to invent an enemy for themselves in the person of the Russian opposition."
Navalnaya, the wife of the late Russian corruption fighter Aleksei Navalny, said later on Telegram that she thought it was wrong to be asked if she supports Russia's war against Ukraine.
"I am fighting against Putin's regime and against the war. And I think that these are interconnected things,” she said on Telegram. “My husband, Aleksei Navalny, fought against Putin and against the war, and was killed in prison for it. He used every court hearing against him, including the one on February 24, 2022, as a platform for an anti-war speech.”
Navalnaya ally Leonid Volkov, who was also at the conference, said Navalnaya managed to finish her speech and confirmed that she invited the protesters to the stage and answered them in detail.
"After the applause, she returned to the podium and finished her speech," Volkov said on Telegram.
While in Lisbon, Navalnaya also took part in the opening of a ceremony to dedicate a plaque in memory of her husband opposite the Russian Embassy. The plaque is engraved with the words "Don't give up" -- the opposition leader's call to his comrades in case of his death.
