Alexei Navalni's mother won a small victory against the Kremlin. Lyudmila Navalnaya recovered the remains of the Russian dissident after a tough battle lasting several days with the authorities. “Alexei's body was handed over to his mother, thank you to those who demanded it,” declared the dissident's former spokeswoman Kira Yarmish, as a sign of her gratitude to the wave of citizens and figures of the country who cried out against the Kremlin because of him wanted to organize a secret funeral without the opponent's mother being present.
There are still many details to be clarified, especially how the opponent's funeral will take place and whether or not the family will carry out a second autopsy. The dissident's spokesman stressed that the funeral is “pending” and that Lyudmila Navalnaya is still in Salekhard, the Arctic Circle city next to the IK-3 prison where Navalny was transferred in his final two months of detention, where he died at the age of 47 years on the 16th
Navalnaya publicly denounced this week that the authorities were blackmailing her. “They want 'the funeral' to take place secretly, without saying goodbye.” They want to take me to the edge of the cemetery, to a fresh grave and tell me: “Here lies your son,” the activist's mother explained last night Thursday. A day later, the dissident circle reported that Navalnaya had received a three-hour ultimatum: accept the Kremlin's conditions or the activist's remains would be buried in the Arctic prison, almost 2,000 kilometers from Moscow.
Navalni's spokesman made no reference to concessions from the family or from President Vladimir Putin, for whom Navalni was his major political opponent in the country. Yarmish added on the social network They do not know whether the authorities will try to prevent the funeral from taking place “as the family wants and Alexei deserves.”
Navalni's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, gives a video message.
A day after the dissident's death, Navalny's mother arrived in Salekhard accompanied by a lawyer. Authorities prevented her from seeing her son's body until Thursday the 22nd, and she heard several versions about the causes of death. On the day of Navalny's death, Kremlin propaganda spread that he had suffered “a blood clot,” a version dismissed by one of the Russian doctors who treated the dissident when he was poisoned with Novichok in 2020. Afterwards, prison officials told Navalnaya that her son suffered from “sudden death syndrome,” a cause of death that does not exist in medical terminology. Subsequently, investigators assured the woman on February 19 that they would not hand over the body to her for at least two weeks because they needed to conduct “a medical examination.”
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Last Thursday, Navalnaya was finally able to see her son's body and receive the death certificate. As Navalni's team revealed, the official version is that he died “of natural causes”, although no one close to the opponent doubts that it was a murder orchestrated by the Kremlin.
The organization the dissident led until his death, the Anti-Corruption Fund, has offered a reward of 100,000 euros “for complete information on Navalni’s murder.” The head of the platform, Iván Dzhakov, appealed on his YouTube channel to employees of the security forces and the Russian prison system to reveal all details about the activist's final hours using encrypted digital tools. “If you feel the same pain as us, write to us. “It shows that there are still people within the system who regret Putin’s immoral crimes,” Dzhakov said.
Hours before the Kremlin agreed to hand over Navalny's body to his mother, the activist's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, published a message denouncing the authorities' inhumane treatment of the deceased's family. “Today marks nine days since my husband died. Nine days have passed since Putin killed Alexei Navalny, but the murder was not enough for Putin. Now he holds her body hostage; “He makes fun of his mother, forces him to have a secret funeral or threatens to do something with Alexéi's body,” complained the opponent's widow.
After Navalny's death, Yulia Navalnaya announced that she would succeed her husband and henceforth be a political opposition to the Kremlin. In her latest video, the opponent contrasts “Putin himself, who likes to show that he is a devout Christian,” with “who lies and blackmails a tormented mother.” “What Putin is doing now is hate.” No, that’s not even hate, it’s satanism, paganism. What are you planning to do with his body? How far will you go to make fun of the man you killed? Blackmail, threats, ultimatums. “Really?” Navalnaya asked, turning from one person to the other to the Russian head of state.
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