Navalny’s grieving household and political crew, who demanded the return of his stays on Saturday, have confronted an prolonged, nearly surreal battle to get well his physique, and even to ascertain its location — with Russian officers seemingly decided to impede any impartial investigation into the reason for dying and delay a funeral.
However as Russian authorities continued to torment Navalny and his household even after his dying at age 47, there have been indicators that his spouse, Yulia Navalnaya, was ready to proceed her husband’s campaign in opposition to the Putin regime. Navalnaya was in Brussels on Monday to deal with European Union international ministers who invited her in a present of solidarity.
In a video assertion posted on YouTube on Monday, Navalnaya proclaimed: “I’ll proceed the work of Alexei Navalny.”
“A free, peaceable, pleased Russia, a Lovely Russia of the Future, which my husband dreamed of a lot — that’s what we’d like,” Navalnaya mentioned. “I need to reside on this Russia. I need our kids to reside in it. I need to construct it with you.”
“I mustn’t have been on this place” Navalnaya, clad in black, added, her voice often trembling. “I shouldn’t be recording this video. A special individual must be in my place.” She accused Putin of murdering her husband. “Putin didn’t solely homicide the individual, Alexei Navalny. He needed, together with him to kill out hope, our freedom, our future,” she mentioned.
Navalny’s mom, Lyudmila Navalnaya, 69, has not been allowed even to see his physique. She traveled on Saturday to the Polar Wolf jail simply above the Arctic Circle in Yamalo-Nenets area, the place he died Friday and to the native morgue. Jail officers gave her a paper displaying a time of dying — 2:17 p.m. — however morgue officers denied that they had the physique.
After the Russian newspaper-in-exile Novaya Gazeta Europe reported that Navalny’s physique was certainly on the morgue in Salkehard, the regional capital, Lyudmila Navalnaya and Navalny’s attorneys went to the morgue early Monday morning and have been once more denied entry.
“They weren’t allowed to go in. One of many attorneys was actually pushed out,” Navalny’s press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, who lives outdoors Russia, posted on X. “When the employees was requested if Alexei’s physique was there, they didn’t reply.”
Members of Navalny’s crew have referred to as his dying a “homicide,” whereas many world leaders, together with President Biden, have said that Putin bears accountability for his dying.
Amid fears that the true reason behind dying could by no means be recognized, Yarmysh mentioned officers from Russia’s Investigative Committee, which handles main crimes, had prolonged their inquiry into the matter.
“They don’t say how lengthy it is going to take. The reason for dying continues to be ‘unknown.’ They lie, purchase time for themselves and don’t even disguise it,” Yarmysh mentioned.
On Saturday, Lyudmila Navalnaya was initially informed by jail officers that her son died of “sudden dying syndrome,” with Investigative Committee officers later providing contradictory accounts, stating that the trigger was unknown.
Putin who has lengthy made a degree of nearly by no means uttering Navalny’s title, has made no remark in regards to the dying of Navalny, who for greater than a decade was considered because the Russian chief’s most charismatic opponent.
Navalny was barred from operating within the 2018 Russian presidential election in opposition to Putin, after his unexpectedly robust displaying within the 2013 Moscow mayoral race.
Navalny confronted quite a few prison prices, which he and lots of impartial analysts mentioned have been trumped up for political retribution, and in August 2020, he was poisoned with a chemical nerve agent. Navalny later teamed up with Bellingcat, the investigative information group, and managed to show {that a} crew of brokers from Russia’s Federal Safety Service, or FSB, was chargeable for monitoring and poisoning him. They even recognized lots of the brokers by title. Navalny referred to as one and tricked him into confessing his function within the failed assassination try.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, on Monday mentioned Putin had made no response to Navalny’s dying, and that the Kremlin was “not engaged” within the matter of the return of his physique to his household. Requested whether or not the Kremlin was involved about guaranteeing a radical investigation into the reason for dying, Peskov replied: “These actions which are stipulated by Russian laws are being carried out.”
“The investigation into Navalny’s dying is underway, and the required actions are being carried out,” he mentioned. “However the outcomes haven’t but been made public. It isn’t recognized about them.”
Peskov additionally criticized world leaders who mentioned the Russian president was chargeable for Navalny’s dying, calling it “completely unacceptable to make such blatantly boorish statements.”
Tens of 1000’s of Russians have signed appeals for Navalny’s physique to be returned to his household and for them to be granted entry to the video digital camera and body-camera footage from the jail and its employees.
Greater than 50,000 signed a petition organized by OVD-Data, a authorized rights group, to the Investigative Committee demanding the return of his physique to the household, and greater than 20,500 individuals signed a petition mounted by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and longtime Novaya Gazeta editor Dmitry Muratov, demanding that the household be granted entry to the surveillance footage from the jail.
Unbiased Russian media outlet Mediazona on Sunday printed video of a convoy, together with two police automobiles and a jail van touring on Friday evening from the Polar Wolf jail colony towards Salekhard, presumably carrying Navalny’s physique.
Novaya Gazeta Europe, quoting an ambulance paramedic, reported that Navalny’s physique was initially taken to a district hospital in Salekhard, as an alternative of on to the morgue as is customary within the case of jail deaths. The physique was later transferred to the morgue, in line with the paramedic.
Natalia Abbakumova and Mary Ilyushina in Riga, Latvia, contributed reporting.
