The Russian authorities agreed this Saturday to hand over to his mother the body of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died eight days earlier in prison in still unclarified circumstances, reported the politician’s team, who in the last decade became the most critical voice against Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin.
“Alexei’s body has been delivered to his mother. Thank you to everyone who demanded it along with us,” Kira Yármish, spokesperson for the deceased opponent, wrote from exile on the social network X (formerly Twitter). More than 25 Russian personalities had joined the demand, including film directors, artists, ballet stars and opponents of President Putin.
He added that Navalni’s mother is still in the Arctic city of Salekhard, close to the prison where her son died on the 16th.
Ludmila Navalnaya, 69, flew a day later to Salekhard, the administrative center of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, 1,900 kilometers northeast of Moscow. Since then she has been demanding that the authorities hand over the remains of her son.
From Salekhard he drove to Jarp, 60 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle. In that town is the IK-3 penal colony, to which the Russian Prison Service transferred his son Alexei in December and where he died suddenly, at the age of 47.
The prison, built in the 1960s on a former Gulag prison camp, is nicknamed Polar Wolf for its harsh living conditions. Especially climatic. Last weekend in Jarp temperatures of about 30 degrees below zero were recorded.
Given the lack of responses from the Russian authorities, on Tuesday Ludmila Navalnaya addressed Putin directly in a video published by Navalni’s team on YouTube.
Recorded in front of the IK-3 penal colony, he made a desperate request to the Russian president. “I am addressing you, Vladimir Putin. The solution to this matter depends only on you. Let me see my son once and for all!” said the opponent’s mother, wearing black glasses and a scarf over her head to protect herself. from the cold.
“I demand that Alexei’s body be given to me immediately so that I can bury it as God intended. It is the fifth day that I have not been able to see it. They have not given me his body and they have not even told me where it is,” he complained.
On Thursday she reported that investigators from the Investigative Committee, which in Russia is in charge of major crimes, had tried to blackmail her to bury him secretly. And a day later, Yármish stated that Navalni’s mother had received an ultimatum: either she accepted a secret funeral or they buried him in the Arctic prison where she died. Ludmila Naválnaya refused to negotiate with them, claiming that “they have no power to decide how and where to bury her son.”
The Russian authorities have finally given in to the requests of Navalni’s family and team. But the question remains as to what the funeral of the prominent opponent will be and where it will be held. Burial preparations have yet to be agreed upon, the spokesperson says, and she does not trust the Russian authorities and doubts whether they will interfere in the process.
“We have the funerals ahead, but we don’t know if the authorities are going to prevent them from being held as the family wishes and as Alexei deserves,” Yármish added.
Alexei Navalny’s collaborators and his widow, Yulia, have directly accused Vladimir Putin of being behind the opponent’s death and of having ordered his death. Several Western governments did the same, accusations that the Kremlin rejected and described as “unacceptable.” His spokesperson asked to wait for the results of the autopsy. The death certificate that his mother received states that Navalni died of natural causes, a version that his team rejects.
