Navalny’s team also assumes that the Kremlin opponent is dead: it was said that his mother had received an official notification. It is unclear where the body is currently located. Despite arrests, people across the country continue to mourn.
The team of imprisoned Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny has confirmed his death and raised allegations of murder. “Nawalny was murdered,” wrote his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysch on X. The 47-year-old’s mother traveled to the prison camp in northern Russia and received official confirmation of her son’s death.
The death is said to have occurred on Friday at 2:17 p.m. local time (10:17 a.m. CET). Employees of the state investigative committee picked up the body, said Jarmysch. An employee of the prison camp said that the body had been taken to the city of Salekhard for examinations. The city is around 50 kilometers from the prison camp.
Mother and lawyer look for body
However, the body appears to be untraceable there at the moment. Navalny’s mother and his lawyer traveled to Salekhard, but the morgue was closed, Yarmysch wrote. The lawyer also did not receive a satisfactory answer using the contact telephone number posted at the entrance. “He was told that he was the seventh caller that day,” said the spokeswoman. “And Alexei’s body is not in their morgue.” She demanded that Navalny’s body be handed over to his relatives immediately.
The Reuters news agency also reported that the body had not yet arrived at the morgue. An employee of the facility said this on the phone.
Jarmysch further wrote that the authorities did not want to hand over the body to the relatives until their investigations had been completed. A second lawyer was told that the cause of death was not yet known and that further histological examination had been carried out, the results of which were expected next week. “It’s obvious that they’re lying and doing everything they can to avoid handing over the body,” said Jarmysch. The lawyers were only told that the investigations had revealed “nothing criminal.” “They lie all the time and lead us around in circles.”
Navalny’s supporters accused the authorities of preventing the body from being handed over in order to cover the tracks of the “murderers.” “It is obvious that the murderers want to cover their tracks and therefore do not hand over his body and even hide it from his mother,” the team explained on the online service Telegram.
Hundreds of arrests nationwide
The circumstances of the death remain unclear. Russian authorities reported on Friday that the Kremlin critic had died. Navalny, who was physically weak after many days in repeated solitary confinement, collapsed while walking in the prison camp in freezing temperatures. Attempts at resuscitation were unsuccessful, the prison service said. Human rights activists, on the other hand, accuse the Russian power apparatus of murder.
Despite pressure from the authorities, people across the country continue to publicly mourn the opposition figure. According to reports from human rights activists, hundreds of arrests were made. The Internet portal ovd.info wrote that more than 400 people were arrested in 36 cities, including Moscow and St. Petersburg. The portal also listed the names of those arrested.
In many places, despite evictions and arrests, fresh flowers continued to be laid, candles were lit and pictures were put up in memory of Navalny. There were also numerous rallies abroad in memory of the Kremlin opponent, mostly in front of Russian diplomatic missions.
“The fear of a dead person is great”
“How great the power apparatus’ fear of a dead person is when even laying flowers in his memory is viewed as a crime,” wrote the Russian Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Kremlin-critical newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Dmitri Muratov, on the Telegram news channel.
As a globally recognized Russian opposition leader, Navalny embodied the hope for a future after the dictatorship, wrote expert Alexander Baunow for the Carnegie think tank. Even in the prison camp, the politician remained a nuisance for the Kremlin. “But the effort itself to get rid of such an irritating figure also shows that the regime is not as confident in itself and its future as it would like to appear,” said Baunow.
“There is absolutely no substitute”
Nobel Peace Prize winner Irina Scherbakova described Navalny’s death as a great loss for the opposition in the country. “There is absolutely no substitute when it comes to charisma and strength,” she said rbb. Figures like him are rare in politics anyway. The loss also affects the people who fight for a free Russia without President Vladimir Putin and want to live there.
For the co-founder of the human rights organization Memorial, which was banned by the Russian authorities, the death of the dissident is the “strongest political gesture that could be made.” Now Navalny is a symbol of a person who is “willing to die for his cause.”
Nevertheless, he never portrayed himself as a martyr, but rather made jokes. Even when he was arrested or in court, he didn’t appear tragic, but rather with humor. With regard to the war in Ukraine, the historian said: “You always have to keep that in mind. When you talk about peace negotiations, who are you negotiating with: actually with a murderous regime.”
Russia’s power apparatus repeatedly uses violence against critics. Protests have not been allowed in the country for years.