The funeral and burial of the prominent Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalni, who died two weeks ago in an Arctic prison, were complicated hours before this Friday, the date scheduled for its celebration. His collaborators reported on Thursday that the threats received by funeral homes in the Russian capital had prevented them from finding a hearse to transport the activist’s body to his own funeral.
According to his allies, several individuals were frustrating his efforts to organize the details of Navalny’s final farewell.
Its former spokesperson, Kira Yármish, wrote from exile on X (formerly Twitter) that unknown people had called the suppliers of these vehicles and threatened them. As a consequence, no one had agreed to transport the opponent’s remains.
Another of his co-religionists, lawyer Iván Zhdanov, assured that Navalny’s team would manage and promised that he would finally achieve a solution.
The religious funeral for Alexéi Navalni is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. (noon in Barcelona) this Friday, the first day of March, in the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God, in the Moscow neighborhood where the opponent, Márino, lived. After the religious service, which will be public, Navalny will be buried in the Borisovo Cemetery, also in the southeast of the Russian capital.
The lawyer and opposition activist Alexei Navalny, who was 47 years old and was serving a combined sentence of three decades in prison, died on February 16 in a remote prison in the Russian prison system, known as Polar Wolf for its harsh living conditions. The IK-3 penal colony in the village of Jarp, in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, is located 1,900 kilometers northeast of Moscow and 60 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle.
The death certificate delivered to his mother, Ludmila Naválnaya, indicates that he died of natural causes. According to prison authorities, the opponent felt ill after taking a walk, lost consciousness and then neither the prison services nor the ambulance that arrived could revive him.
Navalny’s co-religionists reject this version and directly accuse the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, of ordering what they call “murder.”
His former right-hand woman, María Pévchij, said this week in a video posted on YouTube that Navalny was about to be exchanged for Russian hitman Vadim Krásikov, who is serving a life sentence in Germany for a murder. But according to her, Putin frustrated this exchange and ordered Navalny’s death because he could not stand the fact that his main critic was freed.
Many Western leaders also hold the Russian leader responsible. The Kremlin has described these accusations as “unacceptable” and its spokesman, Dimitri Peskov, asked to wait for the official conclusions of the analyzes and autopsy.
Peskov has also assured that the Kremlin was not aware of any prisoner exchange negotiations in which Navalny was included.
The team of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s biggest critic, who also promised to broadcast the funeral online, accused the Russian authorities of blocking the organization of a civil ceremony by preventing them from renting a room or premises to install his remains there facing the public and receive goodbye from whoever wanted to get closer.
Navalny’s allies, whose name Putin has always avoided saying in public, have denounced this week that their first intention was to celebrate the funeral on February 29, but it was not possible because it coincided with the Russian president’s speech on the state of the nation before Parliament. Zhdanov said on his Telegram channel on Wednesday that it was impossible to order mourning services for this day.
“It quickly became clear that by February 29 there was not a single person who could dig a grave. It was possible on March 1, also on February 28. But not on the 29th,” he wrote.
