A girl locations a bit of paper with phrases of grief for Alexei Navalny paying the final respect to him on the Memorial to Victims of Political Repression in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Saturday.
Dmitri Lovetsky/AP
disguise caption
toggle caption
Dmitri Lovetsky/AP
A girl locations a bit of paper with phrases of grief for Alexei Navalny paying the final respect to him on the Memorial to Victims of Political Repression in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Saturday.
Dmitri Lovetsky/AP
The physique of Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny has been handed over to his mom, a prime aide to Navalny stated Saturday on his social media account.
Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Basis, made the announcement on his Telegram account and thanked “everybody” who had referred to as on Russian authorities to return Navalny’s physique to his mom.
Earlier Saturday, Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s widow, accused President Vladimir Putin of mocking Christianity by making an attempt to drive his mom to conform to a secret funeral after his demise in an Arctic penal colony.
“Thanks very a lot. Due to everybody who wrote and recorded video messages. You all did what you wanted to do. Thanks. Alexei Navalny’s physique has been given to his mom,” Zhdanov wrote.
Navalny, 47, Russia’s most well-known opposition politician, unexpectedly died on Feb. 16 in an Arctic penal colony and his household have been preventing for greater than per week to have his physique returned to them. Outstanding Russians launched movies calling on authorities to launch the physique and Western nations have hit Russia with extra sanctions as punishment for Navalny’s demise in addition to for the second anniversary of its invasion of Ukraine.
Navalny’s mom, Lyudmila Navalnaya, remains to be in Salekhard, Navalny’s press secretary Kira Yarmysh stated on X, previously Twitter. Lyudmila Navalnaya has been within the Arctic area for greater than per week, demanding that Russian authorities return the physique of her son to her.
“The funeral remains to be pending,” Yarmysh tweeted, questioning whether or not authorities will permit it to go forward “because the household needs and as Alexei deserves.”
Earlier Saturday, Navalny’s widow stated in a video that Navalny’s mom was being “actually tortured” by authorities who had threatened to bury Navalny within the Arctic jail. They, she stated, urged to his mom that she didn’t have a lot time to decide as a result of the physique is decomposing, Navalnaya stated.
“Give us the physique of my husband,” Navalnaya stated earlier Saturday. “You tortured him alive, and now you retain torturing him useless. You mock the stays of the useless.”
Navalny, 47, Russia’s most well-known opposition politician, unexpectedly died on Feb. 16 within the penal colony, prompting a whole lot of Russians throughout the nation to stream to impromptu memorials with flowers and candles.
Authorities have detained scores of individuals as they search to suppress any main outpouring of sympathy for Putin’s fiercest foe earlier than the presidential election he’s nearly sure to win. Russians on social media say officers do not wish to return Navalny’s physique to his household, as a result of they worry a public present of help for him.
Navalnaya accused Putin, an Orthodox Christian, of killing Navalny.
“No true Christian might ever do what Putin is now doing with the physique of Alexei,” she stated, asking, “What is going to you do along with his corpse? How low will you sink to mock the person you murdered?”
Saturday marked 9 days because the opposition chief’s demise, a day when Orthodox Christians maintain a memorial service.
Folks throughout Russia got here out to mark the event and honor Navalny’s reminiscence by gathering at Orthodox church buildings, leaving flowers at public monuments or holding one-person protests.
Muscovites lined up outdoors the town’s Christ the Savior Cathedral to pay their respects, based on images and movies printed by unbiased Russian information outlet SOTAvision. The video additionally exhibits Russian police stationed close by and officers stopping a number of individuals for an ID examine.
As of early Saturday afternoon, no less than 27 individuals had been detained in 9 Russian cities for exhibiting help for Navalny, based on the OVD-Data rights group that tracks political arrests.
They included Sergei Karabatov, 64, who laid flowers at a Moscow monument to victims of political repression, together with a handwritten observe saying “Do not assume that is the tip.” Additionally arrested was Aida Nuriyeva, from the town of Ufa close to the Ural Mountains, who stood in a avenue with an indication saying “Putin is Navalny’s assassin! I demand that the physique be returned!”
Putin is commonly pictured at church, dunking himself in ice water to have fun the Epiphany and visiting holy websites in Russia. He has promoted what he has referred to as “conventional values” with out which, he as soon as stated, “society degrades.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected allegations that Putin was concerned in Navalny’s demise, calling them “completely unfounded, insolent accusations in regards to the head of the Russian state.”
Musician Nadya Tolokonnikova, who turned broadly identified after spending practically two years in jail for collaborating in a 2012 protest along with her band Pussy Riot inside Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral, was one in all many outstanding Russians who launched a video during which she accused Putin of hypocrisy and requested him to launch Navalny’s physique.
“We have been imprisoned for allegedly trampling on conventional values. However nobody tramples on conventional Russian values greater than you, Putin, your officers and your clergymen who pray for all of the homicide that you simply do, 12 months after 12 months, day after day,” stated Tolokonnikova, who lives overseas. “Putin, have a conscience, give his mom the physique of her son.”
Lyudmila Navalnaya stated Thursday that investigators allowed her to see her son’s physique within the morgue within the Arctic metropolis of Salekhard. She had filed a lawsuit at a courtroom in Salekhard contesting officers’ refusal to launch the physique. A closed-door listening to had been scheduled for March 4.
Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokesman, stated that Lyudmila Navalnaya was proven a medical certificates stating that her son died of “pure causes.”
