Yulia Navalnaya had said she always wanted to be a politician’s wife, not a politician herself. But in the days since her husband Alexei Navalny died in a remote Arctic penal colony, she has seized the stage like a world leader.

Hours after Russia announced the death of Navalny last Friday, she vowed to hold President Vladimir Putin responsible in a speech to world leaders at the Munich Security conference. This week, she lobbied the EU’s foreign affairs council for rounds of new sanctions against Russia in Brussels, then shared an embrace with US president Joe Biden in San Francisco alongside her daughter Darya.

“The old-timers there were saying nobody could remember such an emotional moment at Munich as that short speech she just gave,” says Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia. “She’s got the skills to do this job. She just never wanted to because she always thought that was Alexei’s role.”