Russia
Navalny’s mother received her son’s body
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in a Russian prison camp on February 16, during a memorial march for Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov, who was murdered in 2015. photo
© Pavel Golovkin/AP/dpa
Russian authorities have handed over Alexei Navalny’s body to his mother. The Kremlin opponent died in custody more than a week ago.
The mother of the Kremlin opponent who died in custody Alexei Navalny received his body from the authorities. Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Jarmysch announced this on X (formerly Twitter).
Navalny’s widow and daughter had previously urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to hand over the body for a humane burial. The Kremlin opponent died in a prison camp more than a week ago.
Putin, who describes himself as a devout Christian, mocks the remains of the dead man and displays “open Satanism,” said widow Yulia Navalnaya in a video message. “Hand over Alexei. They tortured him alive and continue to torture him dead,” she said. “They break every human and divine law.”
“Give Grandma my father’s body,” Navalny’s daughter Darya wrote on the social network Navalny’s widow accused Putin of continuing to torment Alexei’s mother and wanting to break her.
“Driven by hatred and desire for revenge”
Although Putin poses in Russian Orthodox churches with a candle in his hand and kisses icons, he is actually driven by hatred and a desire for revenge, said Yulia Navalnaya. “No, it’s not even hate, it’s satanism, paganism.” But faith is about goodness, about mercy, about redemption. “And no true Christian could ever do what Putin is doing now with dead Alexei.”
At the same time, the 47-year-old condemned Putin’s war against Ukraine, for which he also used the church. The Kremlin chief is leading the campaign against the West by relying on traditional values. “But you just kill, bomb sleeping civilians at night with rockets that were blessed in the church,” Navalnaya said. The Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kirill, is a confidant of Putin and an ardent supporter of the war against Ukraine. Clergy repeatedly publicly bless rockets.
According to authorities, Navalny died on February 16 in the penal camp with the unofficial name “Arctic Wolf” in the Siberian Arctic region of Yamal. The circumstances of his death are not clear. The politician, weakened by the poison attack and repeated solitary confinement in the camp, is said to have collapsed during a tour of the icy prison yard and died despite attempts to resuscitate him. According to Navalny’s team, the death certificate mentions “natural” causes.