Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny’s mother Lyudmila Navalnaya speaks near the prison colony in the town of Kharp, Russia. (Screen capture taken from video provided by the Navalny Team)
RIGA, Latvia — Alexei Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, appealed to President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to direct authorities in the northern Yamalo-Nenets region to hand over the opposition leader’s body for burial.
“It’s been five days, and I still can’t see him; they don’t give me his body, and they don’t even tell me where he is,” Navalnaya said in a video statement, standing in front of the Polar Wolf high-security prison where her son died Friday.
“I appeal to you, Vladimir Putin, the resolution to the issue depends solely on you,” she said. “Let me finally see my son. I demand that Alexei’s body be immediately handed over so that I can humanely bury him.” The video was posted on Navalny’s YouTube channel.
The director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, Ivan Zhdanov, also published a letter written by Navalnaya and addressed to Putin.
Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said Monday that local investigators refused to hand over the body to his family and that it would be held for two weeks to carry out “chemical expertise.” Yarmysh said Navalny’s team believes authorities are delaying the release of the body “to hide the traces of the murder.”
The direct appeal to the Russian leader, whom Navalny’s family and allies have blamed personally for his death, mirrored a plea from Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, to Putin in August 2020 asking the president to allow her to fly him to Germany for treatment after he fell ill from poisoning.
After Navalny fell unconscious on a flight from Moscow to Tomsk, doctors at a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk put him into a medically induced coma, and local authorities refused to allow Yulia Navalnaya or Navalny’s personal doctors into the room to see him.
A day later, Yulia Navalnaya wrote a letter to Putin demanding to see her husband and transport him to a hospital in Berlin, essentially saving his life. Medical experts later concluded that he was poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent.
On Monday, Yulia Navalnaya announced that she will continue her husband’s work in fighting Putin’s hold on power, and she directly blamed the Russian leader for Alexei’s death. “My husband could not be broken, and that’s exactly why Putin killed him in the most cowardly way,” she said.
Cryptically, she added: “We know exactly why Putin killed Alexei three days ago. We’ll tell you about it soon.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday called Navalnaya’s remarks “boorish and unfounded” but brushed them off, noting that Navalnaya had just been widowed.
Yulia Navalnaya issued a quick retort on X, previously Twitter. “I don’t care how the killer’s press secretary comments on my words,” she posted. “Give back Alexei’s body and let him be buried with dignity. Don’t stop people from saying goodbye to him.”
Shortly after the post, Navalnaya’s new account on X was briefly suspended, for unclear reasons, but then restored.
Yulia Navalnaya on a visit to Brussels on Monday urged European leaders to hold Putin accountable for her husband‘s death.
And on Tuesday in Washington, John Kirby, a White House spokesperson, said the Biden administration would announce a “major” sanctions package on Friday in response to Navalny’s death and to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Whatever story the Russian government decides to tell the world, it’s clear that President Putin and his government are responsible for Mr Navalny’s death,” Kirby told reporters in a virtual briefing..
He declined to provide details on how the new sanctions would differ from earlier punitive measures but said the package was not only “designed to hold Mr. Putin accountable for two years of war in Ukraine, but also specifically supplemented with additional sanctitons regarding Mr. Navalny’s death.”
Ryan reported from Washington. Robyn Dixon and Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, and Francesca Ebel in Moscow contributed to this report.
