Lyudmila Navalnaya, the mother of dead Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, demanded on Tuesday that President Vladimir Putin hand over her son’s body so she could bury him.
Navalny, 47, fell unconscious and died suddenly on Friday after a walk at the “Polar Wolf” penal colony above the Arctic Circle where he was serving a three-decade sentence, the prison service said.
Speaking in a video filmed in front of the prison as snowflakes swirled in the air, his mother, dressed in black, complained she did not even know where her son’s body was and demanded Putin give the order to release it.
“For a fifth day I cannot see him, they aren’t giving me his body and don’t even tell me where he is,” Navalnaya said in the message, which was broadcast on the Navalny Live YouTube channel.
“I appeal to you, Vladimir Putin. Resolving this issue depends on you alone. Let me finally see my son. I demand that Alexei’s body be released immediately so that I can bury him humanely.”
She also sent an official letter to Putin with the same demand.
Navalny’s allies have cited a Russian investigator as saying that the authorities need at least 14 days to conduct various chemical tests on his body and cannot therefore hand his corpse over yet.
EU calls for investigation
The West and Navalny’s supporters say Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death. France and Germany each summoned their Russian ambassadors over the issue. Meanwhile, at the White House, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Tuesday the U.S. is planning a package of Russia sanctions later this week specifically tied to Navalny’s death.
The Kremlin has denied involvement and said that Western claims that Putin was responsible were unacceptable. Putin has made no public comment.
Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, called for an international investigation of Navalny’s death, but Putin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin would not agree to such a demand.
On Monday, Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, released a video accusing Putin of killing her husband and alleged the refusal to release his body was part of a cover-up.
“They are cowardly and meanly hiding his body, refusing to give it to his mother and lying miserably,” she said.
Navalny’s death has deprived the Russian opposition of its most well-known and inspiring politician less than a month before an election that is all but certain to give Putin another six years in power. Many Russians had seen Navalny as a rare hope for political change amid Putin’s unrelenting crackdown on the opposition.
Russian elites are ‘bandits in uniform”: Navalnaya
In her Monday video, Navalnaya vowed to continue Navalny’s fight against the Kremlin. On Tuesday, her account on X, where she had posted the video, was briefly suspended. The social media company said the suspension was an error caused by a system to prevent manipulation and spam and was quickly remedied.
In a speech Monday to the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council, she urged EU leaders not to recognize the results of next month’s election, to sanction more Putin allies and to help Russians who flee the country. A copy of her remarks was released Tuesday by a Navalny spokesperson.
Navalnaya called on supporters to oppose Putin with greater fury than ever and free Russia from what she characterized as a corrupt elite of “bandits in uniform, thieves and murderers.”
Alexei Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya places the blame for her husband’s death squarely at the feet of Vladimir Putin, as she vows to carry on his fight ‘for a free Russia’ and urges supporters to join her.
Meanwhile, Russia has initiated a new criminal case against Oleg Navalny, Alexei’s brother.
Russian news agency TASS did not say under which article of the criminal code the case had been opened, but said police were searching for him. He was already on the wanted list in connection with another matter.
In 2014, Oleg Navalny was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for fraud in a case Kremlin critics said was trumped up and designed to pile pressure on his late brother.
400 detained for placing flowers
Alexei Navalny, 47, was imprisoned since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from a nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin. He received three prison terms since then from charges he rejected as politically motivated.
Since Navalny’s death, about 400 people have been detained across in Russia as they tried to pay tribute to him with flowers and candles, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political arrests. Authorities cordoned off some of the memorials to victims of Soviet repression across the country that were being used as sites to leave makeshift tributes to Navalny. Police removed the flowers at night, but more keep appearing.
Peskov said police were acting “in accordance with the law” by detaining people paying tribute to Navalny.
Over 60,000 people have submitted requests to the government asking for Navalny’s remains to be handed over to his relatives, OVD-Info said.
In Monday’s video, his widow said: “By killing Alexei, Putin killed half of me, half of my heart and half of my soul. But I still have the other half, and it tells me that I have no right to give up. I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny.”