"Navalny is a very sad situation, he was a very brave person because he went back. He could have stayed away. And it probably would have been much better to talk from outside the country instead of coming back, because people thought it could happen and so it is happened. And it's a horrible thing": Donald Trump said this, without assigning any responsibility for the death of the Russian opponent.
The former US president running again for the White House continues to compare himself to Navalny as a politically persecuted man.
"It's happening in our country too. We are turning into a communist country in many senses. I am the main candidate and I am being indicted," the tycoon said.
In Russia the ax against dissent does not stop.
And while the 007 in Moscow branded the deserter pilot found killed in Spain as a "traitor, a moral corpse", the FSB arrested a 33-year-old woman with a dual Russian-American passport, resident in Los Angeles, for 'high treason ' on charges of having raised funds for the Ukrainian armed forces.
An arrest, the one announced by the Russian services themselves in Yekaterinburg, which immediately triggered a harsh response from the USA: "American citizens in Russia, even those with dual nationality, are invited to leave the country immediately", warned the coordinator of the National Security Advisor John Kirby pointing out that the United States is trying to gain consular access.
"For now we can't say more," he then limited himself to adding.
A new case that adds to that of the Wall Street Journal journalist, Evan Gershkovich, who remains in prison in Russia after the rejection of repeated appeals against his arrest on charges of espionage and which Moscow is using to gain pressure for the exchange of prisoners with Washington.
A few days after Alexei Navalny's death in prison, Moscow then decided to include his brother Oleg on the wanted list, while a court in the capital also ordered the arrest "in absentia" of the opponent Leonid Gozman and the economist Konstantin Sonin, a professor at the University of Chicago, accusing them of spreading "false" information about the army, that is, of having violated the infamous gag law which effectively prohibits taking sides against the invasion of Ukraine.
On the other hand, Maksim Kuzminov, the helicopter pilot of the Kremlin's armed forces who handed himself over to the Ukrainian army together with his Mi-8 last August, saying he was against the military aggression ordered by Putin and was found dead yesterday in Spain riddled with bullets, has carried out a "terrible crime", commented the powerful head of Russian intelligence abroad, Sergey Naryshkin.
Fiery words which certainly do not sound like a denial of the possible involvement of Russian agents in the alleged murder.
“This traitor and criminal became a moral corpse at the very moment he planned his dirty and terrible crime,” declared Vladimir Putin's close aide.
The commander of the SVR has not claimed responsibility for the killing of Kuzminov and full light has yet to be shed on the matter, but Moscow's intelligence has in the past been accused of several murders on foreign soil, and above all - underlines the AFP - Russian state TV said in October that the Kremlin's military intelligence service (GRU) had been "given the order" to kill the pilot.
The Spanish police have not yet confirmed the identity of the young man but Guardia Civil sources told El País that the victim's fingerprints indicate that he is indeed Kuzminov (who probably had documents with a false name).
The pilot's death was also confirmed by Kiev intelligence, which however did not say anything about the cause of death.
According to the Spanish media, the police were looking for two suspects, who fled in a car which was later found charred nearby.
The dignified demeanor, the calm but firm voice and the eyes hidden behind a pair of dark glasses as the snow falls on her.
Behind her is the entrance to IK-3, the penal colony in the Arctic where her son died on February 16th.
Thus Alexei Navalny's mother, Lyudmila, appeared in a video message directed to Vladimir Putin to ask, or rather "demand" of her, that she be handed over her body, which she has not yet been able to see.
"Return Alexei's body and let him be buried with dignity, don't stop people from saying goodbye to him," echoed his widow, Yulia.
However, no response came from the Kremlin, except to reject the accusation made yesterday by Yulia Navalnaya herself against the Russian president of having "killed" the opponent after three years in prison.
"Of course, these are absolutely unfounded and crude accusations against the Russian head of state," said Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, who yesterday assured that "the investigation is ongoing and all necessary actions are being taken in this regard." ".
Russia, however, rejects the request for an international investigation made by the EU High Commissioner for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell.
And regarding Navalnaya's announcement that she wants to take over her husband's inheritance, Moscow shows indifference: Putin didn't even see the video she posted yesterday, Peskov said.
The same indifference was shown by the widow in the reply that arrived by return post: "I don't care about how a murderer's press secretary comments on my words," Navalnaya wrote on X.
Navalny's team said that yesterday the mother was told that the body will be kept for another 14 days for "chemical tests".
"I turn to you, Vladimir Putin - said the woman in the video - the solution to the problem depends only on you. Let me finally see my son. I immediately demand that Alexei's body be handed over so that I can bury him humanely".
Italia Viva has launched a petition for Renew Europe to nominate Yulia Navalnaya, who yesterday participated in the Council of EU Foreign Ministers in Brussels, as a candidate in the next European elections.
During the meeting, according to what the missing opponent's team said, the widow put pressure on the representatives of European diplomacy to go beyond declarations of solidarity, and asked in particular that the EU not recognize the presidential elections which will take place next month in Russia, where Vladimir Putin is running for a fifth term.
“A president who killed his main political opponent cannot be legitimate by definition,” she said.
Meanwhile, the US has announced through the coordinator of the National Security Council, John Kirby, that on Friday it will launch a package of important sanctions on Russia for Navalny's death.
A mystery today instead concerned the suspension, which lasted about an hour, of the account that Navalnaya opened only yesterday on X (formerly Twitter).
Those responsible for Elon Musk's platform said the defense mechanism against manipulation and spam had "erroneously flagged" that the account violated the social network's rules.
For its part, Russia announced today that it had included Alexei Navalny's brother, Oleg, on its wanted list, without specifying the charges.
In the past Oleg, who now lives abroad, had been sentenced to three and a half years in prison together with his brother for charges of "fraud" and then again in absentia to one year in prison for inciting citizens to take to the streets against the arrest of Alexei.
Meanwhile, another well-known opponent in prison, Ilya Yashin, also accused Putin of killing Navalny.
"As long as my heart beats in my chest, I will fight tyranny," Yashin, who is serving a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence for spreading "false information," said in a message posted on social media. on the armed forces, under a law passed in 2022 that led to the convictions of numerous critics of armed intervention in Ukraine.
The opponent wrote that Navalny "died a hero."
"I understand - he added - my own risks. I am behind bars, my life is in Putin's hands, and it is in danger. But I will maintain my line".
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