The mother of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny pleaded Tuesday with President Vladimir Putin to intervene and release her son’s body to her so he can be buried with dignity.
A black-clad Lyudmila Navalnaya appeared in a video outside the barbed wire of the Arctic penal colony where the 47-year-old Navalny died on Friday.
“For the fifth day, I have been unable to see him,” Navalnaya said in the video. “They wouldn’t release his body to me. And they’re not even telling me where he is.”
“I’m reaching out to you, Vladimir Putin,” she said in the video posted on social media by Navalny’s team. “The resolution of this matter depends solely on you. Let me finally see my son. I demand that Alexey’s body is released immediately, so that I can bury him like a human being.”
She said authorities have refused to tell her even where Navalny’s body is. Navalny’s team says Russian authorities have said the cause of death is unknown and refused to release the body for two weeks while an inquest into his death continues.
Navalny’s associates accused the government of stalling to try to hide evidence that he was murdered. On Monday, Navalny’s widow, Yulia, released a video accusing Putin of killing her husband and alleged the refusal to release his body was part of a cover-up.
“They are cowardly and meanly hiding his body, refusing to give it to his mother and lying miserably,” she said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the allegations of a cover-up, telling reporters that “these are absolutely unfounded, insolent accusations about the head of the Russian state.”
Navalny’s death has deprived the Russian opposition of its best-known figure less than a month before an election that is all but certain to give Putin another six years in power. Many Russians had viewed Navalny as a rare hope for political change amid Putin’s unrelenting crackdown on the opposition.
Navalny had been imprisoned since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from a nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. He received three prison terms since then, on charges he rejected as politically motivated.
Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, called for an international investigation of Navalny’s death, but Peskov said the Kremlin would not agree to such a demand.
Crackdown on Navalny tributes
Russia has detained about 400 people across the country since Navalny’s death as they tried to pay tribute to him with flowers and candles, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political arrests.
Authorities have cordoned off some of the memorials to victims of Soviet repression across the country that had become sites to leave makeshift tributes to Navalny. Police have removed the flowers at night, but more keep appearing.
Peskov said police were acting “in accordance with the law” by detaining people paying tribute to Navalny.
Navalny is being remembered outside of Russia as well. In Kazakhstan, Russian rock singer Yuri Shevchuk performed a song to honor Navalny, and, addressing the crowd, said that Navalny spoke to Russians “about freedom,” and reminded them that they “could be free in the best sense of the word.”
Russian emigres, many having fled the country after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, have also mourned the death in cities throughout Europe.
Protesters gathered around Russian embassies throughout Europe on Friday, holding signs calling Putin a “killer.”
At a protest in Berlin, hundreds of people chanted in Russian, German and English, many saying, “Putin to The Hague,” referring to the International Criminal Court.
In a video Monday, Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said, “By killing Alexey, Putin killed half of me, half of my heart and half of my soul.”
“But I still have the other half, and it tells me that I have no right to give up. I will continue the work of Alexey Navalny,” she said.
Peskov initially said he would not comment on Navalnaya’s accusations during a phone call with reporters Tuesday, but then dismissed them as “unfounded” and “boorish,” suggesting she made them during a moment of grief.
Peskov also said Navalnaya’s assertion that authorities were holding her husband’s body for 14 days in order for traces of the nerve agent Novichok to disappear were nothing more than “unsubstantiated accusations” with no evidence to support them.
In 2020 Navalny fell into a coma during a flight to Moscow and eventually was airlifted to Germany for treatment. German officials said there was “unequivocal proof” Navalny had been poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok, a Soviet-era chemical weapon.
A joint investigation conducted by CNN and the British-based investigative website Bellingcat concluded that a special team from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) used Novichok to poison Navalny.
Navalny’s death last Friday has sparked international and domestic outrage, and many Western countries have pointed fingers at the Kremlin. U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday, “Make no mistake, Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death.” Biden said what happened to Navalny is “more proof of Putin’s brutality.”
Putin has not commented on Navalny’s death.
In Washington, the White House said that on Friday, the U.S. would be “announcing a major sanctions package … to hold Russia accountable” for Navalny’s death.
Some information for this report was provided by Reuters and The Associated Press.