Lyudmila Navalnaya, the mother of prominent Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has spoken out against the authorities’ attempts to force her into a secret burial for her son. In a video statement from the Arctic city of Salekhard, she revealed that she was allowed to see her son’s body at the city morgue and reiterated her demand for his body to be released to her.
Lyudmila Navalnaya described the intense pressure she has been facing from the authorities, who are attempting to blackmail her into agreeing to a secretive burial. She expressed her opposition to their plans to conduct the burial without a proper mourning ceremony and emphasized her desire for people who cared about Alexei to have the opportunity to bid him farewell.
Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokesperson, disclosed on social media that Lyudmila Navalnaya was presented with a medical certificate stating that her son’s death was due to “natural causes.” However, no specific details about the nature of these causes were provided.
In a separate development, imprisoned opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza made startling allegations during a court hearing. He claimed that a state-backed hit squad was responsible for eliminating the Kremlin’s political opponents. Kara-Murza, who is serving a 25-year sentence for treason, appeared via video link and accused the Investigative Committee of failing to properly investigate two poisoning attempts against him.
Kara-Murza asserted that the attempts to poison him occurred in 2015 and 2017. He nearly succumbed to kidney failure in the first incident, but the cause remained undetermined. In 2017, he was hospitalized with similar symptoms and placed in a medically induced coma. His wife confirmed that doctors had verified he was poisoned.
