Navalny's mother accuses Russia of wanting to bury her son in secret

Photo: Alexei Navalny’s team via Associated Press “They want everything to be done secretly […] and to tell me “here lies your son”. I do not agree with that,” declared Lyoudmila Navalnaïa, in a video broadcast Thursday by the opponent’s team. We can read at the bottom of the screen his name and that of his son

France Media Agency in Moscow

February 23, 2024

• Asia

The mother of Alexeï Navalny announced Thursday that she had finally seen the body of her son which, according to her, the Russian authorities now want to have buried out of sight, while Joe Biden met in San Francisco the widow and daughter of Vladimir Putin's number one adversary.

In California, the American president expressed to Yulia Navalnaïa and her daughter Dacha, a student at Stanford University, his “admiration for the extraordinary courage” of the opponent as well as for “his fight against corruption and for a free and democratic Russia,” the White House said in a statement.

The latter at the same time called, through one of her spokespersons, John Kirby, on the Russians to “return her son” to his mother Lyudmila Navalnaïa, who accused the authorities of “blackmailing” her for bury his remains in secret.

In the 2010s, before the repressive machine completely fell on him, Mr. Navalny managed to mobilize crowds, particularly in Moscow, thus gaining his status as Vladimir's number one opponent Poutine. And despite the repression that has decimated the opposition, a public funeral could theoretically mobilize its supporters.

“They want everything to be done secretly, without ceremony, they want to take me to the confines of a cemetery, near a fresh grave, and tell me “here lies your son”. I do not agree with this,” said Lyudmila Navalnaïa, in a video released Thursday by the opponent’s team.

“Blackmail”

She said she was taken to the morgue and was able to see the body of Alexeï Navalny, affirming that investigators have already established the cause of death and that “all the legal and medical documents are ready “.

Liudmila Navalnaïa said she was in Salekhard, the capital of the district of Yamalo-Nenetsia, a region in the Far North where her son died in detention on February 16.

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According to the opponent's team, the cause of death is listed as “natural”.

“Legally, they should have returned Alexei’s body to me immediately, but they didn’t. Instead, they are blackmailing me,” the mother criticized the opponent.

“I’m recording this video because they started threatening me. Looking me in the eye, they say that if I refuse a secret funeral, they will do something with his body. The investigator […] openly told me, “Time is against you, the corpse is decomposing,” she said.

According to her, the pressure could come from the Kremlin or from the Investigative Committee of Russia, a powerful investigative body.

“I want for you, those for whom Alexei was a loved one, for whom his death was a personal tragedy, there is an opportunity to say goodbye to him,” continued the mother of the 'opponent.

No political event

For Russian political scientist Tatiana Stanovaïa, the authorities want at all costs to prevent a funeral from becoming a catalyst for Russians who are opposed to the Kremlin and cannot express it publicly under penalty of arrest or prosecution.

“A decision was made to convince Navalny’s mother to make a deal. They will return the body, but on condition that the funeral does not become a political event,” she wrote on her Telegram account.

The Russian police, following the death of the opponent, arrested hundreds of people who came to pay tribute to him by placing flowers on monuments in memory of the victims of Soviet repression.< /p>

Since Saturday, Lyoudmila Navalnaïa had sought access to his body, with investigators ensuring that “expertise” was necessary. She even turned to President Vladimir Putin to win her case.

The team of the Kremlin's main adversary, who died after three years of imprisonment in increasingly harsh conditions, accuses the Kremlin of having Alexeï Navalny killed and of seeking to cover up his traces.

Europeans and Americans believed that Putin and his regime were responsible for his death, accusations described by the Kremlin as “gross and unfounded”. The Russian president himself has not commented on the death of his opponent.

The West “acts as if it were prosecutor, judge and executioner at the same time. The hysteria over Navalny's death proves it, […] these people have no right to interfere in our internal affairs,” said Thursday from Brazil, on the sidelines of a G20 meeting , the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov.