The mother of Alexeï Navalny, the main critic of Vladimir Putin who died in prison in murky circumstances, visited his grave on Saturday, the day after a funeral where thousands of Russians paid tribute to him, risking arrest.
Alexei Navalny, the Russian president's fiercest critic for more than a decade, died on February 16 at the age of 47 in an Arctic penal colony, where he was serving a 19-year prison sentence for "
extremism »
.
The multiple trials brought against him had been widely denounced as a way of punishing him for his opposition to Vladimir Putin.
Already present during the burial of the coffin on Friday, the mother of the opponent, Lyudmila Navalnaïa, went again early Saturday morning to his grave, covered with flowers and wreaths, at the Borisovo cemetery, in the south from Moscow, AFP journalists noted.
She was accompanied by Alla Abrossimova, the mother of Alexeï Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaïa.
Alexei Navalny's mother (left) and his widow's mother (right).
Stringer / REUTERS
Continuous police presence at the cemetery
As for Yulia Navalnaïa, the couple's two children and Alexeï Navalny's brother live abroad and did not attend the funeral, where they could have been arrested for opposition to the Russian president.
Alexei Navalny's widow has vowed to continue her husband's work and has repeatedly said in recent days that Vladimir Putin
"murdered"
him .
AFP journalists on Saturday saw a small number of mourners placing flowers at his grave and a continued police presence at the cemetery, near the banks of the Moskva River.
Read alsoIn Moscow, the last courageous tribute from Navalny's supporters
On Friday, thousands of supporters of Alexeï Navalny had queued for hours to pay tribute to him.
As they streamed from a nearby church toward the cemetery, some chanted
“No to war!”
and other slogans in favor of Navalny, including calling Putin a
“murderer”
and calling for the
“release of political prisoners”
.
Human rights NGO OVD-Info said Russian police arrested at least 128 people participating in tributes to Navalny in 19 cities on Friday.
The scenes of thousands of people marching in support of Alexei Navalny, demanding an end to the Russian assault in Ukraine and castigating the Kremlin, have not been seen in Russia since the first days following Moscow's order to hundreds of thousands of troops to cross the border in late February 2022. The Kremlin has since severely cracked down on dissent and used strict new military censorship laws to prosecute hundreds of people who spoke out publicly against the offensive.