Russia detains 400 people in the protests over Navalni and a Russian media says that his body has "bruises from seizures"

The death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which occurred suddenly last Friday in the Arctic prison where he had been detained since December, still raises many doubts.. Both the Russian opposition and the United States and several European states and institutions have affirmed that Navalny was murdered by order of Vladimir Putin's regime, accusations that presidential spokesman Dimitri Peskov has described as “unacceptable.”. The authorities have already detained dozens of people who were trying to pay tribute to the opposition leader and have not yet revealed the causes of his death.. However, the independent Russian media Novaya Gazeta Europa reported this Sunday that his body had “bruises that appeared to be due to seizures.”

After the announcement of Navalny's death, supporters of the Kremlin's number one enemy for 15 years have decided to honor him by placing flowers and candles in different parts of the country.. However, at least 401 people have been arrested since Friday when they tried to honor him.. As reported this Sunday by the OVD-Info organization, arrests have been made in 36 Russian cities and more than half have been made in Saint Petersburg.. For their part, Russian security forces continue trying to remove all memorials created by Navalny's followers, while demonstrations in his honor spread across Europe, as will happen this Monday in Rome.. All Italian political parties and unions will attend this event, something that has been interpreted as an unprecedented gesture of unity.

These events have coincided with the Munich Security Conference in which European leaders have debated the priorities of the next geopolitical agenda of the European Union. In this sense, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union, Josep Borrell, has warned that Russia is taking advantage of the West's “double standards” in Ukraine and Gaza.. Specifically, he said that the country “is taking advantage of our mistakes” and that double standards must be addressed “not only with nice words.”. Borrell also announced that Yulia Navalnaya, Navalni's widow, will attend the meeting of EU foreign ministers to be held this Monday in Brussels.

Where is Navalni's body?

After hours passed without knowing where Navalni's body is, the aforementioned media has indicated that it is in the morgue of the Clinical Hospital of the Salekhard district and that as of Saturday the autopsy had not yet been performed.. According to a paramedic from the Salekhard ambulance service, the bodies of people who die in prison are usually transferred to the Forensic Medicine Office, but Navalny's body would have first been taken to the city of Labytnangi and later to the aforementioned hospital center. .

Regarding the fact that the autopsy has not yet been performed, the source affirms that there are different versions. “Some said that an order had come from Moscow to wait for the arrival of specialists from the capital, while others said that the hospital's own doctors had refused to perform an autopsy,” said the paramedic.. He also stated that the bruises present on Navalni's body appeared to have been due to seizures.

Specifically, the source explained that the people around him could have held him while he was convulsing and that is how the bruises would have appeared.. His body would also have another hematoma on his chest, a product of the cardiac massage that would have been performed.. “They tried to revive him and he probably died of cardiac arrest, but no one is saying anything about why he went into cardiac arrest,” the paramedic said.

The Russian penitentiary services stated that Navalny went for a walk on Friday afternoon in the IK-3 prison in Jarp, located in the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous district.. After going for a walk, the dissident would have felt bad and would have lost consciousness.. A few minutes later Navalni received medical attention and resuscitation maneuvers were performed without success.

sudden death syndrome

The official version states that Navalni died from “sudden death syndrome”, but his lawyer was later told that it was necessary to perform another histological examination on the body because the causes of his death had not been determined.. For its part, the state channel RT, banned in several Western countries, even reported that Nalvani could have died from a blood clot. His mother has already received the death certificate and has requested that her son's body be given to her, but so far that has not happened.

The death of the Russian opposition leader has coincided with Ukraine's withdrawal from Avdivka, one of kyiv's strongholds in Donbas, an action that has been considered the greatest victory of the Russian Army since they captured Bakhmut in May 2023.. However, the spokesman for the Ukrainian military group 'Tavria', Dmitro Likhovi, has indicated that the operation “has not been a tragedy for the Ukrainian Army” and that the troops fulfilled their mission of “using up the Russian reserves.”. Russia, for its part, continues its offensive operations in the area.