RIGA, Latvia (AP) — Three days after the sudden death Monday of Alexei Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin's biggest rival, the location of his body was still unclear Monday and his mother was again turned away by morgue officials in the Arctic city of Salekhard, 33 Miles from the prison colony where he died, Navalny's press secretary said.
Navalny's grieving family and his political team, who demanded the return of his remains on Saturday, faced a long, almost surreal battle to recover his body or even determine his whereabouts – with Russian officials apparently determined to block any independent investigation into the matter Cause obstructing death and delaying a funeral.
But as Russian authorities continued to torment Navalny's family even after his death at age 47, his wife Yulia Navalnaya said she would continue her husband's crusade against the Putin regime. Navalnaya was in Brussels on Monday to address European Union foreign ministers, who had invited her as an expression of solidarity.
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In a video statement posted on YouTube on Monday, Navalnaya announced: “I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny.”
“A free, peaceful, happy Russia, a beautiful Russia of the future, which my husband dreamed of so much – that is what we need,” Navalnaya said. “I want to live in this Russia. I want our children to live in it. I want to build it with you.”
“I shouldn’t have been in this position,” Navalnaya, dressed all in black, added, her voice occasionally shaking. “I shouldn’t record this video. There should be someone else in my place.” She accused Putin of murdering her husband. “Putin did not just murder Alexei Navalny. He wanted to join him in destroying hope, our freedom, our future,” she said.
Navalny's mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, 69, was not allowed to see his body. She traveled on Saturday to the Polar Wolf Prison just above the Arctic Circle in the Yamal-Nenets region, where he died on Friday, and to the local morgue. Prison officials gave her a paper stating the time of death – 2:17 p.m. – but morgue officials denied having the body.
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After the Russian exile newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europa reported that Navalny's body was actually in the morgue in the regional capital of Salekhard, Lyudmila Navalnaya and Navalny's lawyers went to the morgue early Monday morning and were again denied entry.
“They weren’t allowed to go in. One of the lawyers was literally kicked out,” Navalny's press secretary Kira Yarmysh, who lives outside Russia, posted on X. “When the staff was asked if Alexei's body was there, they did not answer.”
Members of Navalny's team have called his death an “assassination,” while many world leaders, including President Biden, said Putin bore responsibility for his death.
President Biden spoke at the White House amid reports that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died on February 16. (Video: The Washington Post)
Amid fears that the true cause of death may never be known, Yarmysh said officials from Russia's Investigative Committee, which deals with serious crimes, had expanded their investigation into the matter.
“They don’t say how long it will take. The cause of death is still “unknown”. They lie, buy time and don’t even hide it,” Yarmysh said.
On Saturday, prison officials initially told Lyudmila Navalnaya that her son had died of “sudden death syndrome.” Officials from the investigative committee later gave contradictory information and said the cause was unknown.
Putin, who has long made a point of almost never saying Navalny's name, did not comment on the death of the activist, who was considered the Russian leader's most charismatic opponent for more than a decade.
Navalny was barred from running in the 2018 Russian presidential election against Putin after his unexpectedly strong performance in the 2013 Moscow mayoral election.
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Navalny has faced numerous criminal charges that he and many independent analysts believe were faked as political retaliation, and in August 2020 he was poisoned with a chemical nerve agent. Navalny later joined forces with the investigative news group Bellingcat and was able to prove that a team of agents from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) was responsible for tracking and poisoning Navalny. They even identified many of the agents by name. Navalny called one and got him to confess his role in the failed assassination attempt.
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Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Putin had not reacted to Navalny's death and that the Kremlin was “not involved in returning his body to his family.” Asked whether it was important to the Kremlin to ensure a thorough investigation into the cause of death, Peskov replied: “The measures provided for by Russian legislation are being carried out.”
“The investigation into Navalny’s death is ongoing and the necessary measures are being taken,” he said. “But the results have not been published yet. Nothing is known about her.”
Peskov also criticized world leaders who said the Russian president was responsible for Navalny's death, calling it “absolutely unacceptable to make such blatantly rude statements.”
Tens of thousands of Russians have signed appeals demanding that Navalny's body be returned to his family and given them access to the prison and its staff's video and body camera footage.
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More than 50,000 people signed a petition to the Investigative Committee organized by OVD-Info, a human rights group, calling for his body to be returned to the family, and more than 20,500 people signed a petition by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and longtime Novaya Gazeta editor Dmitry Muratov demanded that the family be given access to prison surveillance footage.
The independent Russian media company Mediazona has published Video On Sunday, a convoy consisting of two police cars and a prison van drove from the Polar Wolf prison colony to Salekhard on Friday evening, possibly carrying Navalny's body.
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Novaya Gazeta Europe reported, citing a paramedic, that Navalny's body was first taken to a district hospital in Salekhard and not directly to the morgue, as is common practice for deaths in prison. According to the paramedic, the body was later transferred to the mortuary.
Natalia Abbakumova and Mary Ilyushina in Riga, Latvia contributed to this report.