Kremlin critic: Authorities will not release Navalny’s body for burial

The Russian authorities are once again putting obstacles in the way of the mother of the late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. Lyudmila Navalnaya was ultimately asked by one of the investigators to immediately agree to a burial without a public farewell, otherwise Navalny would be buried in the penal colony, reported spokeswoman Kira Yarmysch on the X platform (formerly Twitter).

“She refused to negotiate with the investigative committee because it had no authority to decide how and where her son should be buried.” Rather, Navalnaya insisted on compliance with the law, according to which investigators are obliged to hand over the body within two days of determining the cause of death, in this case Saturday.

Navalny’s mother insists “that the authorities allow the funeral and memorial service to take place according to usual practices.” The mother of the Kremlin opponent who died in the Russian prison camp was only given access to his body on Thursday after days of waiting. Lyudmila Navalnaya said in a video that she saw her son’s body in the morgue but was not handed over to it.

The 47-year-old died in the prison camp on Friday last week. Since then, the mother had been looking for the body in the Arctic Circle region. In the video, she again demanded that the body be handed over to her so that she could bury it.

Navalnaya had already accused the power apparatus on Thursday of blackmailing her and wanting to secretly bury her son. “They are setting conditions as to where, when and how I should bury Alexei. That is against the law,” she said.

According to authorities, Navalny died on February 16 under unclear circumstances in the penal camp with the unofficial name “Arctic Wolf” in the Siberian Arctic region of Yamal. The politician, weakened by the poison attack and repeated solitary confinement in the camp, is said to have collapsed during a tour of the icy prison yard and died despite attempts to resuscitate him.