Alexei Navalny's mother has achieved a small victory against the Kremlin.
Liudmila Navalnaya has recovered the mortal remains of the Russian dissident after a tough struggle lasting several days with the authorities.
“Alexei's body has been delivered to his mother, many thanks to those who demanded it,” revealed the dissident's former spokesperson, Kira Yarmish, in a show of gratitude to the wave of citizens and personalities of the country who cried out against the Kremlin. for wanting to organize a secret funeral without even the presence of the opponent's mother.
There are still many details to be clarified, above all, how the opponent's burial will be and whether or not the family will perform a second autopsy.
The dissident's spokesperson has highlighted that the funeral "remains pending" and Liudmila Navalnaya is still in Salekhard, the city in the Arctic Circle next to the IK-3 prison, where Navalni was transferred in the last two months of his life and where He died, aged 47, on the 16th.
Navalnaya publicly denounced this week that the authorities were blackmailing her.
“They want the funeral to be done secretly, without saying goodbye.
They want to take me to the outskirts of the cemetery, to a fresh grave and tell me: 'here lies your son,' the activist's mother declared last Thursday.
A day later, the dissident circle reported that Navalnaya had received a three-hour ultimatum: accept the Kremlin's conditions or the activist's remains would be buried in the Arctic prison, almost 2,000 kilometers away from Moscow.
Navalny's spokesperson has not pointed out any clues about the concessions given by the family or President Vladimir Putin, for whom Navalny was his great political antagonist within the country.
Yarmish has added on the social network
01:08
This is how Navalni's widow demanded that his body be returned to them: "Give it back to me without conditions"
Navalni's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, offering a video message.
Navalni's mother arrived in Salekhard accompanied by a lawyer one day after the dissident's death.
The authorities prevented her from seeing the body of her son until Thursday the 22nd and she heard several versions about the causes of his death.
On the day of Navalny's death, Kremlin propaganda spread that he had suffered “a clot,” a version that was discarded by one of the Russian doctors who treated the dissident when he was poisoned with Novichok in 2020. Later, prison officials told Navalnaya that her son had suffered from “sudden death syndrome,” a cause of mortality that does not exist in medical terminology.
Investigators subsequently assured the woman on February 19 that they would not hand over her body for at least two weeks because she needed to perform “a medical examination.”
Finally, Navalnaya was able to see her son's body and receive the death certificate last Thursday.
As revealed by Navalni's team, the official version is that she died "of natural causes", although none of those close to the opponent doubt that it was a murder orchestrated by the Kremlin.
The organization that the dissident led until his death, the Anti-Corruption Fund, has offered a reward of 100,000 euros “for complete information on Navalni's murder.”
The director of the platform, Iván Dzhakov, appealed on his YouTube channel to employees of the Russian security forces and prison system to reveal any details about the activist's last hours through encrypted digital tools.
“If you feel the same pain as us, write to us.
It shows that within the system there are still people who feel pain from Putin's immoral crimes,” Dzhakov said.
Hours before the Kremlin agreed to hand over Navalny's body to his mother, the activist's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, published a message in which she denounced the inhumane treatment by the authorities towards the deceased's family.
“Today marks nine days since my husband died.
Nine days since Putin killed Alexei Navalny, but the murder was not enough for Putin.
He now holds his body hostage;
"He makes fun of his mother, forces him to accept a secret funeral or else threatens to do something with Alexei's body," lamented the opponent's widow.
Yulia Navalnaya announced after Navalny's death that she would take over from her husband and be politically opposed to the Kremlin from now on.
In her latest video, the opponent contrasts “Putin himself who loves to show that he is a believing Christian” with “the one who lies and blackmails a tormented mother.”
“What Putin is doing now is hate.
No, this is not even hatred, it is satanism, paganism.
What do you plan to do with his body?
How far will you go to mock the man you killed?
Blackmail, threats, ultimatums.
"Really?" Navalnaya asked, addressing the Russian head of state face to face.
Follow all the international information on
and
X
, or in
our weekly newsletter
.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Keep reading
I am already a subscriber
_