Dozens of emergency vehicles, barriers, identity checks, throttled mobile networks: the Russian power apparatus is trying to disrupt the funeral service for the most important Russian opposition figure, Alexei Navalny. He is scheduled to be buried in Moscow on Friday. Navalny died on February 16 under still unclear circumstances in a Russian prison camp, where he had to serve a long prison sentence.
The first police patrols were spotted around the Borisov cemetery in the southeast of the Russian capital on Thursday evening. On Friday, the presence of the uniformed men increased again: dozens of emergency vehicles with uniformed men took up positions early in the morning, and uniformed men checked documents and personal belongings of passers-by, as Russian media reported. The mobile internet was also turned down. According to reports, there was a notice hanging on the church not to film or take photographs.
Despite the massive police presence, hundreds of people came to the Borisov cemetery to respond to calls from the Russian opposition. “Come to accompany Alexei Navalny on his final journey when you are in Moscow. Everyone who cannot be there for various reasons will thank you,” said opposition figure Leonid Volkov, himself in exile and a close one was a confidant of Navalny. The German ambassador to Russia, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, also wants to be present, as the German Press Agency learned.
According to Navalny’s team, the process could be delayed. The family has still not received the body for burial. The reasons for this are not clear, Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysch said on Friday morning.
The funeral service is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. local time (12 p.m. CET) in the church in honor of the icon of the Mother of God “Relieve my grief” in the Marjino district of Moscow. The burial is planned at the cemetery on the other side of the Moscow River in Borisov, about half an hour’s walk away.
Navalny’s supporters have warned of police violence against mourners after hundreds of people across Russia were arrested while laying flowers in the past two weeks. The day before the funeral, Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysch also complained on Platform X that the authorities were further hindering the preparations for the funeral service. She wrote that it was still not possible to organize a hearse. Moscow funeral homes received threatening calls from unknown people warning them not to transport the body.
Navalny’s team had previously complained about pressure and attempts at blackmail from the Russian authorities. They want to force them to hold the popular politician’s funeral secretly, as Navalny’s mother Lyudmila Navalnaya said several times.