LATIKA M BOURKE: Albanese initially shunned meeting with Ukraine anti-corruption campaigner Yulia Navalnaya

“An honour to meet Yulia Navalnaya in Canberra today,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on social media on Wednesday afternoon.

“Her advocacy for democracy, freedom and human rights is an inspiration.”

But The Nightly can reveal it was an honour that the Prime Minister originally shunned.

Yulia Navalnaya is on her first-ever visit to Australia this week.

She fearlessly continues the work of her husband, the Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who survived a Novichok assassination attempt in 2020, only to be killed while imprisoned in one of Putin’s gulags last year.

Putin is vengeful and holds grudges. He also has a penchant for sending his Federal Security Service (FSB) agents abroad to assassinate his targets, usually through attempted poisonings.

So, like her husband, Navalnaya too is a target. She lives in exile in Lithuania and chairs the Anti-Corruption Foundation that her husband established in 2011 to expose the corruption of Putin and his cronies.

This week, she is being hosted by think tank the Australian Institute of International Affairs, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has been helping organise meetings.

On Wednesday, she met Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Opposition Leader Sussan Ley. But despite repeated requests, one particular entreaty was rejected.

The Nightly can reveal that despite Anthony Albanese’s department asking him since last Friday and again several times on Monday and Tuesday for him to meet the anti-corruption campaigner, the answer came back that he was “not available”.

When The Nightly sought comment from the Prime Minister’s office as to why he was “not available” given Australia’s commitment to Ukraine, which is fighting for its survival against the regime that murdered Navalny, the Prime Minister’s office then revealed plans to meet Navalny’s widow after all.

In a sign of the ad-hoc nature of the meeting, the Prime Minister did not host Ms Navalnaya in his own office but instead stopped by for around 15 minutes on already pre-arranged meeting with the Foreign Minister Penny Wong in the ministerial wing of Parliament House.

Photographs of the three who all happened to be wearing red, were instantly pushed out onto social media.

But Mr Albanese’s drop-in approach was in stark contrast to the efforts former US President Joe Biden, who personally met Ms Navalnaya and her daughter Dasha in San Francisco last year.

Once again, the Prime Minister showed that he is either disinterested in the issue, is badly advised or shows traces of incompetence. It could be a combination of all three.

Last week, he was busily tweeting out flattering media coverage, promoting his favourite pub in Sydney.

Not a second was sent issuing a statement of public condemnation, like other allied leaders, about Putin’s vicious assault on Kyiv and Australia’s partners in a precisely targeted-missile attack that killed more than 20 Ukrainians, including a sleeping toddler, and damaged British and EU diplomatic buildings.

Words, 15 minutes to meet a brave Russian activist and show solidarity cost Australia, and Mr Albanese, nothing.

It is the very least our national leader could do, given his government’s stated position of standing by Ukraine for as long as it takes.

Ukrainians are fighting on the frontline of freedom and trying to uphold a strained world order that Russia and it’s accomplices, China, North Korea and Iran, aided by a capricious Trump Administration, are doing everything to destroy.

Yet, over and over again it’s just too much, and too hard for this Prime Minister to do what is obviously the right thing when it comes to matters of foreign affairs.

And the great paradox is that after a slow start on supporting Ukraine, such as waiting nearly three years to reinstate our ambassador in Kyiv, sending dud military aid and not enough for a country as wealthy and privileged as Australia, the Prime Minister took a bold and correct call in supporting a possible Coalition of the Willing in Ukraine being led by the UK and France.

Additionally, it is welcome that Australia marked Ms Navalyna’s visit by imposing sanctions against 14 people for silencing political expression in Russia and enabling the illegal invasion of Ukraine.

So it beggars belief that the Prime Minister would risk undoing his government’s own good work but initially refusing a meeting with Ms Navalyana for no good reason.

And, it is also in our own interests to be standing in solidarity with Ukrainians and the few Russian dissidents willing to take on Putin, because Russia has proven itself to be a direct threat to Australians.

Bill Browder, who drove the global campaign for Western governments to adopt Magnitsky Acts that enable governments to sanction human rights offenders, told The Nightly: “Just because Australia is on the other side of the world, it doesn’t mean that the government can assume Putin’s malice won’t reach the country.”

“Just remember MH17,” Sir Bill said.

A total 38 souls who called Australia home were shot down in that flight over eastern Ukraine in 2014. No justice has ever been served for those crimes.

It is for reasons such as these that Ms Ley immediately accepted the invitation to meet Ms Navalyana to demonstrate Australia’s bipartisan support in standing up to Russian brutality.

As Opposition Leader she swiftly reversed her predecessor, Peter Dutton’s wrong decision to boycott any Coalition of the Willing and supports Australian involvement, if it is sought.

“I admire Yulia’s courage and bravery in the face of what has occurred to her and her family and the ongoing threats of violence and intimation she faces,” Ms Ley told The Nightly after her meeting.

“As I said to Yulia, Alexei’s bravery, and the bravery of the now over 3000 political prisoners in Russia is an inspiration to us here in Australia.

“Yulia rightly asked that we never forget there are countless Russians who oppose the war in Ukraine and are yearning for a democratic future and quietly defying Putin’s regime.

“I was honoured to meet with Yulia and her delegation and heartened to learn the Prime Minister changed his mind to meet with her.

“He should have never wavered in meeting with this inspirational woman who has demonstrated such bravery and courage.”