Kremlin fears protest
Funeral service for Navalny is scheduled to take place on Friday in a Moscow church
Candles, flowers and pictures in memory of Alexy Navalny in front of the Russian embassy in The Hague
© Action Press
The funeral for Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who died in a Siberian penal colony, is scheduled to take place in the Russian capital on Friday.
According to his team, Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who died in a prison camp, will be buried in Moscow this Friday. On March 1st there should first be a funeral service in a church in the southeastern district of Marjino and then the burial of the body in the Borissovskoye cemetery, Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysch wrote on Platform X on Wednesday. Previously, Navalny’s supporters had been looking for a place for days wanted to attend the funeral service and complained that they were hindered by the Russian authorities.
According to official information, Navalny died on February 16 at the age of just 47 in a prison camp north of the Arctic Circle. The sharp critic of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin was physically very weakened by a poison attack in 2020 and constant solitary confinement in the camp. His supporters and many international observers therefore agree that there can be no question of a “natural” cause of death, as is stated on the death certificate.
Navalny’s body was only released after hesitation
What also caused particular horror was that the authorities initially kept Navalny’s body under lock and key for around a week and his mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, had to search for the body in the polar region together with a lawyer. Navalnaya also complained that she was harassed by investigators and blackmailed into agreeing to a secret burial. But she didn’t do that – instead she publicly demanded that relatives and supporters should have the opportunity to say goodbye to her son.
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Finally, Navalny’s team declared that they wanted to organize a location for the funeral service. However, as expected, the search has been difficult in the past few days. Shortly before the presidential election on March 17th, any major critical events are a thorn in the side of the Kremlin. Hundreds of people were recently arrested while laying flowers for Navalny.