The mother of Kremlin opponent Navalny, who died in custody, has been looking for her son in the polar region for five days. Now she addresses President Putin in a video message.
The mother of Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny, who died in custody, sent a video message to Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin asking for the body to be released. She is standing in front of the “Polarwolf” prison camp and has been waiting for the fifth day to be able to see her son, Lyudmila Navalnaya said in the video message that has now been published. He died there on February 16th.
“I demand that Alexei's body be returned immediately so that I can bury him in a humane manner,” she said. She has not yet received the body nor has she been told where the body will be kept. After the short speech by Navalnaya, who was visibly grief-stricken, the Orthodox church on the grounds of the prison camp could be seen behind the barbed wire in the video. According to Russian Orthodox custom, the deceased are actually buried no later than the third day after their death.
To this day, the authorities have denied relatives access to Navalny's body, despite international protests. His team, which accuses the Russian power apparatus of murder, sees this as an attempted cover-up. In Russia, more than 70,000 people have already signed a call for the body to be returned to relatives.
The Kremlin has not yet commented on the call and request from Navalnaya's mother. Instead, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in Moscow rejected the allegations made by Navalny's widow Yulia Navalnaya as “unfounded and outrageous.” In a video message on Monday, the 47-year-old blamed Putin for Navalny's death in the prison camp with the unofficial name “Polar Wolf” and announced that she would continue her husband's fight against the Kremlin chief's system.
Navalny died on Friday in a prison camp in the Siberian Arctic region of Yamal. The politician, weakened by a poison attack in 2020 and repeated solitary confinement in the camp, is said to have collapsed during a tour of the icy prison yard and died despite attempts to resuscitate him. Navalny was 47 years old at the time of death.
Promotion of correctional officers
Meanwhile, Putin's simultaneous promotion of senior law enforcement officials sparked strong criticism. The deputy head of the FSIN prison authority, Valery Boyarinev, who was promoted to colonel general of the Interior Ministry, was personally responsible for the torture of Navalny in prison, wrote the director of the Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK) founded by Navalny, Ivan Zhdanov, on his Telegram channel. “This must be understood as Putin's open reward for the torture.”
In July 2023, during a court hearing against Navalny, an order from Boyarinew became known to restrict the opposition politician from purchasing food and daily necessities. Normally, prisoners can use their money to supplement their own meager rations at the prison store. According to Zhdanov, the newly appointed colonel general was also responsible for further harassment of Navalny.
The 53-year-old's promotion became known through the publication of the presidential decree in the legal database. In addition to Boyarinew, three other correctional officers were promoted to the rank of general. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied any connection between Navalny's death and the promotions. These are a very common occurrence, he said.
