The Russian authorities have finally handed over the body of the Russian opponent Alexei Navalny to his mother. The Russian politician died on February 16 in a prison colony in Siberia.
“Alexei's body has been handed over to his mother. Thank you very much to everyone who had requested it with us,” Navalni's spokesperson, Kira Yarmish, published in a message posted on Twitter.
“Liudmila Ivanovna is still in Salekhard. The funeral is still pending. We do not know if the authorities are going to interfere or if it will be done as the family wants and Alexei deserves.. We will inform you as soon as there is news,” he added.
Navalny's mother has been in the Salekhard mortuary for a week, the city closest to the Siberian prison of Polar Wolf where her son died, waiting for the body to be handed over.
Yarmish had previously reported that Liudmila has received a death certificate specifying that Navalny died of natural causes and that she was given three hours to agree to hold a “secret” funeral for her son.. She did not accept it because it would mean burying him in the prison where he died, according to Yarmish, who quotes the opponent's mother.
Putin holds the body “hostage”
This same Saturday, Navalni's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has accused the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, of keeping the body “hostage” and of engaging in numerous blackmail to try to carry out a “secret funeral”, which apparently His trial demonstrates that it is “false” for the president to comply with the Christian premises that he boasts about in public events.
More than a week after Navalni's death, “his death has not been enough for Putin,” his widow lamented, in a video in which she assured that the authorities are now “mocking” and “blackmailing” the mother. threatening to bury the body in prison where she lost her life.
Navalnaya has stressed that “Putin is the only one responsible” for the current situation, the one who gives the orders, “the same one who likes to show that he is a devout Christian.”. The video shows, in fact, the president in several public events linked to the Orthodox Church.
“We already knew that Putin's faith was false, but now it has been seen more clearly than ever,” said the widow, who believes that “no true Christian would do what Putin is doing with Alexei's body.”. He considers that he even falls into “satanism.” For this reason, he has demanded that the family be able to recover the body “without conditions”: “You tortured him in life and now you continue to torture him in death.”
Navalnaya has also taken the opportunity to link this supposed false religiosity of Putin with the invasion that began on Ukraine, of which this Saturday marks precisely two years. “You say you fight the Western evil that interferes with our traditional values, but you only kill. You bomb civilians at night, with missiles consecrated in churches,” he criticized in his speech.