Alexei Navalny’s allies have accused the Kremlin of “covering their tracks” as, two days after the imprisoned opposition leader’s death in custody, uncertainty continued to surround the whereabouts of his body and what it may reveal about how he died.
Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, and his lawyer travelled over the weekend to the notorious “Polar Wolf” IK-3 penal colony in Russia’s Arctic north, where Navalny had been held since last year, to track down his body, but received contradicting information from various institutions over its location and left without recovering or seeing her son.
Hundreds of people have been detained in Russia for taking part in vigils for the 47-year-old and, as outrage over his death continued to grow, the EU foreign policy chief said Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, would address the bloc’s 27 foreign ministers on Monday. She posted the message “I love you” to Instagram on Sunday, along with a photograph of her and her husband. Western leaders have said they hold the Kremlin responsible for his death.
Lyudmila, who unlike Yulia and Navalny’s children, remains in Russia, was first told that the body of her son had been taken to Salekhard, the town near the prison complex, but when she arrived at the morgue on Saturday it was closed. “They’re driving us around in circles and covering their tracks,” Navalny’s spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, said.
Ivan Zhdanov, who directs Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said that Navalny’s lawyer and mother were also told that the cause of his death was “sudden death syndrome” – a vague term for a range of cardiac conditions that cause sudden cardiac arrest and death.
Novaya Gazeta Europe, an independent news outlet, cited unidentified sources as saying that Navalny’s body had been taken on Sunday to the morgue at the Salekhard district clinical hospital.
One paramedic at the Salekhard ambulance service told Novaya Gazeta that colleagues who treated Navalny said his body had showed signs of bruising consistent with seizure as well as traces of heart massage attempts. But an employee at the morgue in Salekhard denied the reports, telling Reuters that Navalny’s body had not arrived.
The conflicting reports added to the lingering haze over Navalny’s final hours as his allies called for Moscow to provide more information.
“Everything there is covered with cameras in the colony. Every step he took was filmed from all angles all these years. Each employee has a video recorder,” Navalny’s closest ally and strategist, Leonid Volkov, wrote on X.
“In two days, there has been not a single video leaked or published. There is no room for uncertainty here,” he added.
Russia’s prison authorities reported on Friday that Navalny felt unwell after a walk and soon became unconscious at the prison in the town of Kharp. An ambulance arrived, but he could not be revived, the service claimed, adding that the cause of death was still “being established”.
Meanwhile, for the third day in a row, mourners gathered across Russia on Sunday to pay their respects and lay flowers at makeshift memorials for Navalny.
“Coming here to say goodbye is the least we can do. I feel like we have let Navalny down. We allowed this to happen,” said Oksana, a student in Moscow who laid flowers on Sunday at the Wall of Grief, a monument to the victims of political persecution during the Stalin period.
Over the weekend, UK and US ambassadors, with many of their European counterparts, also laid flowers to honour Navalny. “Many thought Navalny may never be released, but the fact that he is now dead is clearly a heavy blow. It is a sign for many in the country that hope is gone,” said one senior western diplomat in Moscow.
Some protesters resorted to daring political stunts. In the central Russian city of Izhevsk, supporters hung up a large poster saying “Navalny was killed” in front of the local headquarters of the FSB security services.
But even grieving is not without risk in today’s Russia. More than 350 people have been detained at the impromptu memorial services across 32 Russian cities since the death of Navalny, according to the rights group OVD-Info. Russian courts have handed prison terms of up to 14 days to scores of people, with 154 sentenced in St Petersburg alone.
Among them was Father Grigory Mikhnov-Voitenko, a priest from St Petersburg who was arrested on his way to hold a memorial service for Navalny, who was a practising Christian. Father Grigory was later charged with organising a rally and placed in a holding cell in a police precinct, but was later hospitalised with a stroke.
The wave of arrests was the biggest crackdown on civil society since Russians took to the streets to protest against a general mobilisation in September 2022.
The EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, meanwhile announced that Yulia Navalnaya would be in Brussels on Monday to meet foreign ministers from the 27 member states at the EU Foreign Affairs Council.
Borrell said on X: “On Monday, I will welcome Yulia Navalnaya at the EU Foreign Affairs Council.”
“EU ministers will send a strong message of support to freedom fighters in Russia and honour the memory of Alexei Navalny,” he added.
Navalnaya’s Instagram post on Sunday was her first statement since addressing western leaders at the Munich security conference hours after the news of her husband’s death was first announced, and her first since Navalny’s allies confirmed his death.
In the photograph the couple’s heads were touching as they watched a performance.
Navalnaya had not seen her husband in two years when she made a dramatic appearance in Munich, telling western leaders that she wanted Vladimir Putin to face the consequences for what she then feared was her husband’s death.
“If this is true, then I want Putin and all his entourage, Putin’s friends and his government to know: they will bear responsibility for what they did to our country, to my family, to my husband,” she said with tears in her eyes.
