The burial of Russian opponent Alexei Navalny is a matter of state for Vladimir Putin, who fears that his grave will become the center of a massive demonstration.
The authorities have redoubled their pressure on the dissident's mother, Liudmila Navalnaya, to accept the burial planned by the Kremlin.
Otherwise, Navalny's body will be buried inside the Arctic Circle prison to which he was transferred shortly before he died suddenly last Friday, at the age of 47.
“One of the members of the investigation called Alexei's mother and gave her an ultimatum.
Either he accepts a secret funeral without a public farewell in three hours, or Alexei will be buried in prison,” the dissident's former spokesperson, Kira Yarmish, revealed on X, the old Twitter.
“She has refused to negotiate with the Investigative Committee,” added Navalni's communications chief.
Navalny died in the IK-3 penal colony in Jarp, almost 2,000 kilometers northeast of Moscow, in the middle of the Arctic Circle.
The mother of Putin's great political enemy arrived the next day to claim the body of her son, but the authorities denied her access to the morgue for six days, until this Thursday.
Once there, she received Navalni's death certificate and a warning to accept a funeral without even the presence of the family: "the body decomposes," one of the members of the investigation told Navalnaya.
The dissident's mother has refused to negotiate with the Investigative Committee because “she is not authorized to decide how and when her son can be buried,” as Yarmish stressed this Friday.
“Demand that the law be complied with, according to which investigators are obliged to deliver the body two days after establishing the cause of death.
According to the signed documents, that deadline expires tomorrow,” added the opposition spokesperson.
Navalny's mother, Yarmish stressed, "insists that the authorities allow the burial and his funeral to be celebrated in accordance with customs."
Several Russian public figures have joined this clamor since Navalnaya reported being “blackmailed” by the authorities.
Furthermore, many of them have recalled that Putin boasts of being a champion of the family and “traditional values.”
“It is uncomfortable to talk about this in a country that still considers itself Christian.
Simply give Liudmila her child,” demanded journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitri Muratov.
“They are sadistic and act in cold blood”
The scientist Ilia Kolmanovski has been harsher from London: “Putin killed Navalni and now he mocks his mother and all of us by threatening to destroy his body.
This State is not afraid of anything.
“They are sadistic and act in cold blood.”
Another dissident, the candidate who promotes peace in Ukraine and who has been banned from the March presidential elections, Boris Nadezhdin, has also asked Putin for humanity.
“Give Alexei Navalny's body to his mother.
"You can have different opinions about Navalny, but like any mortal, he must be buried according to the customs of his faith and in accordance with the law," he stated in X.
More than 1,750 priests and believers have also joined this clamor in an open letter in which they ask the Kremlin for “mercy and compassion” with “the mother, wife, children and loved ones [of Navalny].”
“Even Pontius Pilate did not interfere with the release of Christ's body and his burial.
Do not be more cruel than Pilate,” the statement emphasizes.
Navalny's circle has leaked that the official version of the autopsy establishes that he died "of natural causes", although the opponent's entourage is sure that Navalni, poisoned with the chemical agent Novichok in 2020, was murdered.
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