Eight days after the death of Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny, Lyudmila Navalnaya receives his remains. Navalny's widow Yulia accuses Kremlin chief Putin of “satanism”.
The mother of Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny, who died in custody, received his body from authorities. Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Jarmysch announced this on Saturday on X (formerly Twitter). For days now, family members and supporters of the opposition activist have been calling on the Russian leadership to hand over the dead man so he can be given a human burial. Navalny died on Friday last week in a prison camp in Siberia.
Navalny's widow, Yulia, and her daughter Darja had already appealed in videos to the Kremlin to hand over the opposition leader's body. “Give us my husband’s body back. We want to hold a funeral and bury him in a humane way, as is customary in Orthodox Christianity,” Yulia Navalnaya said in a six-minute YouTube video on Saturday.
Navalny's wife: Putin tortures deceased husband even in death
She also made serious accusations against Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, whom several Western politicians also blamed for Navalny's death. Putin was personally responsible for the whereabouts of the body, Navalnaya said. He tortures Navalny to death, as he did during his lifetime. “No true Christian could ever do what Putin is doing now with Alexei’s body.” Her husband, on the other hand, was a devout Christian who went to church and observed Lent even in prison. Navalny's political commitment was inspired by Christian values.
“Give grandma my father’s body,” Navalny’s daughter Darja wrote on the social network X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday. Her grandmother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, said in a video on Thursday that Putin's authorities wanted to force her to attend a secret funeral and threatened to harm her body. Navalny's widow accused Putin of continuing to torment Alexei's mother and wanting to break her.
The late Kremlin critic Navalny with his wife Yulia. Portal/Maria Vasilyeva
Lyudmila Navalnaya accuses Putin of “paganism”.
Although Putin poses in Russian Orthodox churches with a candle in his hand and kisses icons, he is actually driven by hatred and a desire for revenge, said Yulia Navalnaya. “No, it’s not even hate, it’s Satanism, paganism.” But faith has to do with kindness, with mercy, with redemption. “And no true Christian could do what Putin is doing now to the late Alexei.”
At the same time, the 47-year-old condemned Putin's war against Ukraine, for which he also used the church. The head of the Kremlin leads the campaign against the West based on traditional values. “But you just kill, bomb sleeping civilians at night with rockets who were blessed in church,” Navalnaya said. The Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kirill, is a confidant of Putin and an ardent supporter of war against Ukraine. Clergy repeatedly publicly bless the rockets.
Flowers for Navalny in Milan. APA/AFP/Gabriel Bouys
Numerous arrests across Russia
Despite recent police violence, people in Russia once again remembered Navalny on Saturday. According to the independent portal ovd.info, there were 27 arrests while people laid flowers in memory of the late Kremlin opponent. At Moscow's Cathedral of the Savior, the main Russian Orthodox church, people waited in line to pay homage to the 47-year-old inside on the ninth day after Navalny's death. In other churches across the country, people also paid their last respects to Navalny after a public call on social media.
According to authorities, Navalny died on February 16 in the penal camp with the unofficial name “Arctic Wolf” in the Siberian Arctic region of Yamal. The circumstances of his death are unclear. The politician, weakened by the poison attack and repeated solitary confinement in the camp, reportedly collapsed during a visit to the prison's freezing courtyard and died despite attempts to resuscitate him. According to Navalny's team, the death certificate mentions “natural” causes.
Flowers for the main victims of the war
In the center of Moscow, people in the Ukrainski Avenue park remembered the victims of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, despite the police presence. There they laid flowers at the foot of a monument to Ukrainian poet Lesya Ukrainka. Uniformed police officers followed the events in a police car, as reported by a reporter from the German Press Agency.
Public anti-war actions are very rare in Russia, even in the face of massive state repression. There were repeated arrests. Authorities have recently taken violent action against mourners, even after Navalny's death. There were hundreds of arrests in the country. (APA/Portal/dpa)