Where is his body? Kremlin’s barbaric cat-and-mouse game over dead Navalny ‘Putin wants Russia to have a say in every decision of global importance’

Lyudmila Navalnaya holds her documents tightly in her hand as she walks the snowy paths from Salekhard in northwestern Siberia and links arms with her lawyer. Video recordings today show Alexei Navalny’s mother.

Behind the Arctic Circle it is cold, minus 27 degrees. Here, behind the walls of ‘penal colony number 3’ in the village of Charp, the life of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny suddenly ended last Friday. your son. However, the mother still does not know where his body is.

Lyudmila Navalnaya does not shy away from dealing with the Russian authorities. She’s known her for years. She spent hours in Russian courts, sitting on wooden benches in the corner, listening, trying to understand what judges in all kinds of negotiations were muttering to themselves, what they were saying to Alyosha (Alexei’s nickname), the beacon of hope for so many. Russian women and Russians, accused.

There were so many absurd accusations that even lawyers could hardly understand them. The 69-year-old endured the state’s humiliation towards her son and avoided the public. Now she finds herself in the public space that accompanies her on her tireless search for her boy’s body – as the Russian state continues to humiliate Alexei Navalny even after his death. And Lyudmila Navalnaya with him.

Tens of thousands are fighting for its release

Under Russian law, prison authorities are obliged to return the body of a person who has died in custody to relatives, according to Justice Ministry order number 93 from 2005. The order lists only three reasons for not doing so: if the prisoner who has previously stated that the relatives refuse to collect the body or that it is not found at all.

But Navalny’s relatives are fighting for his release; More than 55,000 people are now fighting for it in a petition. Authorities are now talking about an “extensive examination of the body”, the cause of death has “not been clarified”, according to the Russian Investigative Committee. Russian law rarely applied to Navalny.

«Early in the morning, Alexei’s mother and her lawyers arrived at the morgue. They were not allowed in. One of the lawyers was literally forced to leave. When asked if Alexei’s body was there, the staff said nothing,” Navalny’s press spokeswoman Kira Yarmysch wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Eliminate traces of crime

Ivan Zhdanov, the head of Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation FBK (declared ‘extremist’ in Russia), recalls the cat-and-mouse game of the days after Navalny’s poisoning in August 2020. Even then, the deadlines were repeatedly extended, The Navalny’s clothing has not been published. «They say they are interested in doing everything as quickly as possible, say everything will be decided within an hour. These unprincipled lackeys lie shamelessly. They know very well that nothing will be decided within an hour, even after a day. It’s clear what they’re doing now. Eliminate the traces of their crime,” he wrote on X.

The Russian media portal ‘Mediazona’ published surveillance camera images between Labytnangi (also a place with a penal colony, not far from Charp) and the regional capital Salekhard. It shows how a convoy of prison authorities passed through this single entrance from Charp to Salekhard – across the icy Ob River – on the night of February 17.

The journalists assume that Navalny’s body was taken from the penal colony in a minibus. The Kremlin said on Monday that it was “not the task of the presidential administration to deal with the issue of the return of a body.” “All legally required measures will be taken,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Meanwhile, Lyudmila Navalnaya continues to wait for her Alyosha in Salekhard.