Lyudmila Navalnaya, the mother of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, called upon President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to relinquish her son’s body so that she could lay him to rest.
Navalny, aged 47, lost consciousness and passed away suddenly on Friday after a stroll at the “Polar Wolf” penal colony situated above the Arctic Circle, where he was serving a three-decade sentence, as per the prison service.
Speaking in a video filmed in front of the prison, with small snowflakes swirling in the air, his mother – dressed in black – expressed her grievance about not knowing the location of her son’s body and demanded a release order from Putin during the message broadcasted on the Navalny LIVE YouTube channel.
“For the fifth day, I am unable to see him, they are not giving me his body and do not even tell me where he is,” Navalnaya voiced in the message. “I appeal to you, Vladimir Putin. Resolving this issue depends on you alone. Let me finally see my son.”
“I demand that Alexei’s body be released immediately so that I can bury him humanely,” she added, stating that she also sent an official letter to Putin with the same demand.
Navalny’s allies have pointed to a Russian investigator’s statement that the authorities require at least 14 days to conduct various chemical tests on his body, which is why they cannot hand over his corpse yet.
The West and Navalny’s supporters have attributed Navalny’s death to Putin. The Kremlin has refuted the allegations, stating that Western claims of Putin’s involvement are unacceptable.
Putin has not publicly commented on Navalny’s death, further exacerbating the divide in relations between Moscow and the West caused by the nearly two-year Ukraine war.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Alexander Marrow; editing by Andrew Osborn)
