The Kremlin on Tuesday called Yulia Navalnaya’s accusations that Russian President Vladimir Putin murdered her husband, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, as “unfounded” and “rude.”
“These are unfounded and rude accusations against the head of state,” said Russian Presidency spokesman Dmitri Peskov in his daily telephone press conference. Peskov insisted that the accusations against the Russian leader “are not based on anything.”
At the same time, he assured that he does not want to make any further comments for “ethical reasons,” since Naválnaya “was widowed a few days ago.” In any case, she assured that Putin has not seen the message spread by the politician’s widow.
The Kremlin spokesman stated that Moscow completely rejects the demands for an international investigation into Navalvni’s death, “even more so” if they come from the head of diplomacy of the European Union, Josep Borrell.
Navalny’s widow affirmed yesterday that she will continue her husband’s fight against the Kremlin, whose tenant she blamed for his murder. “I will continue Navalny’s cause and I call on you to be by my side (…). Alexei loved Russia more than anything in the world,” said Navalnaya in a video broadcast on the deceased opponent’s channel on YouTube.
According to the widow of Russia’s number one political opponent, “Putin killed not only the person, Alexei Navalny, but along with him he wanted to kill our hopes, our freedom, our future.”
Yulia, 47 years old, the same as her husband, added in the message recorded in exile that “all these years” she was with Alexei in the demonstrations, house arrests, searches and during his poisoning in the summer of 2020.
The opponent’s mother, Liudmila Naválnaya, previously failed to get prison officials or morgue employees to allow her to see her son’s body in the city of Salekhard, near the site of the prison where he was held last day. 16 Navalni died. “They didn’t let them in. They literally pushed one of the lawyers out,” Navalny’s team reported. For this reason, the mother has demanded that the Russian president give her the body of her son “so she can bury him as God intended.”
According to OVD-Info, an organization that protects the rights of detainees, more than 60,000 people have already signed a popular petition for the authorities to hand over the body to the family.
At the same time, Navalny’s spokesperson, Kira Yarmish, assured yesterday that Russian investigators argued a “chemical examination” that they have to perform on the body of the opponent in order not to hand it over for at least another 14 days.
According to Yarmish, it is a “lie” and a “mockery” and the investigators do not hand over the body to “hide” possible evidence of Navalni’s murder.
