Alexei Navalny's mother pleads with Vladimir Putin to release her son's body

‘Let me finally see my son,’ said Lyudmila Navalnaya, dressed all in black as she stood outside the penal colony where Navalny died
Lydia Chantler-Hicks20 February 2024

The mother of Russian Alexei Navalny has appealed directly to Russian Vladimir Putin to hand over her son's body so she can bury him with dignity.

Lyudmila Navalnaya, who has been trying to get the opposition leader‘s body since Saturday, appeared in a video outside the Arctic penal colony where he died on Friday.

"For the fifth day, I have been unable to see him,” she said in the video on Tuesday.

“They wouldn't release his body to me. And they're not even telling me where he is.

"I'm reaching out to you, Vladimir Putin,” she added, dressed all in black, as she stood before the barbed wire of Penal Colony No. 3 in Kharp.

“The resolution of this matter depends solely on you. Let me finally see my son. I demand that Alexei's body is released immediately, so that I can bury him like a human being.”

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny
AP

The video was posted to social media by Navalny's team.

Russian authorities have said the cause of Navalny's death is still unknown and have refused to release his body for the next two weeks as the preliminary inquest continues, members of his team said.

They accused the government of stalling to try to hide evidence.

On Monday, Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, released a video accusing the Kremlin of killing her husband using the nerve agent Novichok, and alleged the refusal to release his body was part of a cover-up.

"They are cowardly and meanly hiding his body, refusing to give it to his mother and lying miserably," she said.

Lyudmila Navalnaya and her son's lawyers have reportedly visited law enforcement agencies and the morgue where Navalny’s body is believed to be held in the Arctic region, but were unable to get them to turn it over or confirm where it is.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the allegations of a cover-up, telling reporters that "these are absolutely unfounded, insolent accusations about the head of the Russian state."

Navalny's death has deprived the Russian opposition of its best-known and inspiring politician, less than a month before an election that is all but certain to give Putin another six years in power. Many Russians had seen Navalny as a rare hope for political change amid Putin's unrelenting crackdown on the opposition.

In her impassioned Monday video, Yulia Navalnaya vowed to continue his fight against the Kremlin. On Tuesday, her account on X, where she had posted the video, was briefly suspended by the platform but later restored.

TOPSHOT-BELGIUM-EU-RUSSIA-POLITICS
Navalny's widow Yulia Navalnaya, speaking at a meeting of European Union Foreign Ministers in Brussels on February 19
POOL/AFP via Getty Images

In a speech Monday to the European Union's Foreign Affairs Council, she urged EU leaders not to recognize the results of next month's election, to sanction more Putin allies and to help Russians who flee the country.

Navalny, 47, had been imprisoned since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from a nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin.

Since his return, he had received three prison terms on charges he rejected as politically motivated.

After the last verdict that resulted in a 19-year term, Navalny said he understood he was "serving a life sentence, which is measured by the length of my life or the length of life of this regime."

Josep Borrell, the European Union's foreign policy chief, called for an international investigation of Navalny's death, but Mr Peskov said the Kremlin would not agree to such a demand.

Since Navalny's death, about 400 people have been detained across in Russia as they tried to pay tribute to him with flowers and candles, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political arrests.

Police detain a man laying flowers to Navalny at the Memorial to Victims of Political Repression in St Petersburg, Russia, on February 16
AP

Authorities cordoned off some of the memorials to victims of Soviet repression across the country that were being used as sites to leave makeshift tributes to Navalny. Police removed the flowers at night, but more keep appearing.

Putin has not commented publicly on Navalny's death.

On Monday, he signed a decree promoting a number of law enforcement and military officials, including Valery Boyarinev, the first deputy chief of the State Penitentiary Service. Boyarinev, who received the rank of colonel-general, has been accused by Navalny's team of personally ordering restrictions on the opposition leader.

Peskov denied there was any connection between Navalny's death and the new rank for Boyarinev.

More than 60,000 people have submitted requests to the government asking for Navalny's remains to be handed over to his relatives, OVD-Info said.

In Monday's video, Navalny’s widow Yulia said: "By killing Alexei, Putin killed half of me, half of my heart and half of my soul."

"But I still have the other half, and it tells me that I have no right to give up. I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny.”

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