The body of dissident Alexei Navalny, finally delivered to his mother

The body of the Russian dissident leader, Alexei Navalny, who died suddenly in prison, has been handed over to his mother, his spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, announced on Saturday.

The team of the late Russian dissident leader, whose death marked one week yesterday, had previously reported that an agent called Navalny's mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, and gave her an ultimatum: either accept a secret funeral without a public farewell. in three hours, or his son would be buried in the very prison where he died.

Announcing the handover of the body today, Yarmysh did not know whether the Russian government would allow a funeral to take place, he wrote on the social network X, formerly Twitter.

Russian authorities do not want a public funeral for Alexei Navalny, but signs of mourning continue despite police pressure. Residents of the Russian capital went to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior to honor the memory of Navalny. At the entrance to the temple, the main one in Moscow, a queue of people formed. The police stopped several people at the exit to check their documents.

Several dozen people came to the Smolny Cathedral in Saint Petersburg. Inside were two employees of the feared Center E for the fight against extremism, who filmed them with their phones.. Upon leaving the temple, the police checked the documents, according to local media.

The human rights entity OVD reported that in various Russian cities, 27 people who were laying flowers in memory of Alexei Navalny had already been arrested before nightfall.

Lyudmila Navalnaya, 69, has been demanding for days that authorities release her son's body for burial in a way that allows his friends, family and followers to pay their respects.

Both Navalny's wife, Yulia Navalnaya, and the opposition's team denounce that it was the government that ordered his murder. The Kremlin has said it had nothing to do with his death and that the circumstances are being investigated.

Navalny was jailed on charges he and his entourage consider false in January 2021, upon his return from Germany, where he was recovering from a near-fatal nerve agent poisoning in 2020 in Russia.. Once in prison, new charges were brought against him and his prison sentence was extended by almost two decades.

In a video recorded before the body was handed over, Navalny's widow accused Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom she called “demonic”, of “torturing” the corpse of his political opponent.

In her six-minute video posted on YouTube, Navalnaya stated that she would continue the fight against Putin's regime, questioned the Russian president's faith and accused him of holding her husband's body “hostage.”

Navalny's allies urged his followers “not to relax” and his spokesperson warned that there is no certainty that Russian authorities would allow relatives to hold a funeral “in the way the family wants and as Alexei deserves.”