Navalny's mother, Lyudmila Navalnaïa, has accused Russian authorities of “blackmail” in order to “secretly” bury her son's remains.
In a video posted on YouTube on Thursday, February 22, the mother of Russian opponent Alexei Navalny explained that she was able to see her son's body after being prevented from doing so for several days. She accuses the Russian authorities of “blackmail” in order to “secretly” bury Navalny’s remains.
“They are blackmailing me, (…) They want everything to happen secretly and without ceremony, they want to take me to a cemetery, near a fresh grave, and tell me: 'Here lies your son,' I.” I don’t agree with it,” Lyoudmila Navalnaïa said in a video released by the opposing team on Thursday.
“The medical documents are available”
After surviving a poisoning in August 2020 and subsequently being treated in Germany, Alexei Navalny, who became popular through his investigations into the corruption of Russian power, decided to return to Russia in January 2021.
He was immediately arrested and gradually sentenced to increasingly harsh sentences in increasingly difficult prison conditions, often locked in the cold of an isolation cell. According to the Russian prison administration, Navalny died on February 16 in Penal Colony No. 3 in the city of Charp, a high-security prison where he had been imprisoned since late 2023, serving a 19-year sentence for “extremism”.
Lyudmila Navalnaïa said Thursday that she had been taken to the morgue and was able to see her son's remains. She also says she is in Salekhard, the capital of the Yamal-Nenets district, a region in the far north where Alexei Navalny officially died in custody on February 16. According to his mother, investigators have already determined the cause of death, “and all legal and medical documents are available.”
threats”
According to the opposing team, the cause of death was given as “natural”. “Legally, they should have returned Alexei's body to me immediately, but they didn't. Instead they blackmail me,” criticized the opposing mother.
“I'm recording this video because they started threatening me. They look me in the eye and say if I refuse a secret funeral they will do something to his body. The investigator (…) m” He said openly: “Time.” “If someone is against you, the corpse will fall apart,” she said.
“I want you, those for whom Alexei was a loved one, for whom his death was a personal tragedy, to have an opportunity to say goodbye to him,” the opponent's mother continued.
Navalny's team accuses the Kremlin of killing him
Since Saturday, Lyoudmila Navalnaïa had sought access to his body, with investigators ensuring that “expert knowledge” was required. She even turned to President Vladimir Putin to win her case.
The team surrounding Vladimir Putin's main opponent, who died after three years in prison under increasingly difficult conditions, accuses the Kremlin of having Alexei Navalny killed and covering its tracks.