Allies of Alexei Navalny have accused the Kremlin of blocking their attempts to organise a bigger memorial event for the late Russian opposition leader, as it was announced that his funeral would be held on Friday in Moscow.
The funeral would take place at the Borisovskoye cemetery in Moscow after a farewell ceremony at the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God in the Maryino district of the Russian capital where Navalny used to live, his spokesperson, Kira Yarmish, announced.
“Come in advance,” Yarmish wrote on X.
The memorial service, presided over by a priest and accompanied by choral singing, allows people to walk past the open casket of the deceased to say their farewells.
Ivan Zhdanov, another close Navalny ally, said his team was unable to find a venue where his supporters could publicly bid him farewell later this week. The event was supposed to be separate from the funeral service.
Zhdanov said his team initially found a hall for the 29 February but said they were then put under pressure to hold a closed remembrance service without the public. “Bastards. They won’t give us the date we want. They won’t give us the hall. Everyone will say goodbye to Alexei anyway,” Zhdanov wrote on X.
“To have a chance to say goodbye, it’s best to arrive early,” he added.
Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said that Vladimir Putin was “mocking the memory” of her late husband by thwarting attempts to organise a bigger event to honour him.
“People in the Kremlin killed him, then mocked Alexei’s body, then mocked his mother, now they are mocking his memory. We don’t want special treatment for anyone – just to give people a chance to say goodbye to Alexei in a normal way. Just stay out of the way, please,” Navalnaya wrote on X, adding that Putin and the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, were responsible for blocking a civil memorial service for the public.
Navalny’s family and allies have previously accused the Kremlin of delaying the handover of his body and “blackmailing” his mother into agreeing to a private funeral without the general public in attendance.
It remains unclear whether the authorities will allow mourners to gather freely at the funeral on Friday.
Speaking at the European parliament in Strasbourg earlier on Wednesday, Navalnaya said she was not sure the funeral would be “peaceful or if police would arrest those who came to say bye to my husband”.
Observers believe that the Kremlin appears to be going to great lengths to prevent Navalny’s funeral from turning into a public display of support for the late opposition leader before the country’s presidential elections next month.
Hundreds of people have been detained in Russia while laying flowers at vigils for Navalny across the country.
The Russian authorities claim Navalny, Putin’s most formidable domestic opponent, fell unconscious and died after a walk at the “Polar Wolf” Arctic penal colony. Navalny’s death certificate, according to supporters, said he died of natural causes.
Navalny’s team and Navalnaya have accused Vladimir Putin of murdering him.
Navalnaya called the Russian president “a bloody monster, the ringleader of an organised crime group” on Wednesday.
“Putin must answer for what he did to my country. Putin must answer for what he did to a neighbouring peaceful country. Putin must be held accountable for what he did to Alexei,” Navalnaya told European lawmakers in Strasbourg.
She also said the Kremlin “abused” her husband’s body by refusing to hand it over to his family for more than a week after his death.
Maria Pevchikh, a close ally of the opposition leader, alleged on Monday that Putin had Navalny killed in jail to sabotage a prisoner swap in which he would have been exchanged for a convicted hitman jailed in Germany.
The Guardian and other western media have reported that Navalny was part of discussions on a prisoner exchange, although details of the deal remain unclear.
