“Putin did not just kill the person Alexei Navalny,” she said, dressed in black, her voice shaking at times during the dramatic video speech. He wanted to kill our hope, our freedom, and our future.”
Navalnaya also accused the Russian authorities of refusing to hand over Navalny's body to his 69-year-old mother so that she could cover up the cause of death.
“They are lying pathetically, waiting for traces of another Putin Novichok gas to disappear there,” Navalnaya said, referring to the class of nerve agent that international investigators said Russian security agents used in an attempt to assassinate her husband in August 2020.
She continued: “My husband cannot be broken, and this is exactly why Putin killed him, in the most cowardly way.” “He did not have the courage to look him in the eye or even say his name. And now they are also cowards, hiding his body, not showing it to his mother, not giving it to her.”
Three days after Navalny's sudden death on Friday, the location of his body remained unclear on Monday, and his mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, was once again rejected by morgue officials in the Arctic town of Salekhard, 33 miles from the prison colony where he died. Navalny's press reported. The secretary said.
Navalny's grieving family and political team have been demanding the return of his remains since Saturday, but they have faced a long, almost surreal, struggle to recover his body or even locate it — as Russian officials appear intent on obstructing any independent investigation into the cause of Navalny's killing. Death and delayed funeral.
Navalnaya was in Brussels on Monday to address European Union foreign ministers who invited her in a show of solidarity and a follow-up to her emotional appearance at the Munich Security Conference on Friday shortly after news of her husband's death broke.
At the meeting in Brussels, she sat next to the European Union's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, surrounded by diplomats and officials, looking exhausted but determined.
“We expressed the European Union’s deepest condolences to Yulia Navalnaya,” Borrell said. to publish On X, formerly Twitter. “Vladimir Putin and his regime will bear responsibility for Alexei’s death.” … “As Yulia said, Putin is not Russia. Borrell continued: Russia is not Putin. “We will continue our support for civil society and independent media in Russia.”
a A European diplomat said Nayalnaya called on the European Union to impose sanctions on 500 Russian oligarchs who support Putin's re-election, and to prevent the Russian elite from evading sanctions. She called for efforts to map financial flows from Putin's inner circle.
Navalnaya too he met With European Council President Charles Michel.
In her video statement, Navalnaya pledged that she and her husband's team would discover those directly responsible for her husband's death and reveal exactly how it happened. “We will name names and show faces. But the main thing we can do for Alexei and for ourselves is to keep fighting,” she added.
“I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny,” Navalnaya declared, adding:
“By killing Alexei, Putin killed half of me, half of my heart, half of my soul. But I still have the other half, and he tells me that I have no right to give it up. I will continue the Alexei Navalny case.”
She also directly addressed one of the questions lingering in the West about her husband: why he returned to Russia in 2021 after recovering from a poisoning attack in Germany, risking possible arrest and possible death, when he could have lived in peace with his family in Germany. exile?
“He can't,” she said, holding back tears. “Alexey loved Russia more than anything else in the world, he loved our country, he loved you. He believed in us, in our strength, in our future, in the fact that we deserve better.”
On Friday, after news of her husband's death emerged, Navalnaya met with Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who is also the wife of a jailed opposition politician and political prisoner.
Tikhanovskaya replaced her husband Sergei Tikhanovsky as presidential candidate in August 2020, after he was arrested in May that year – two days after announcing his intention to run in the elections against Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko. Sergei Tikhanovsky remains in prison.
Tikhanovskaya, who now lives in exile in Lithuania, claimed victory in the August 9 election, but Lukashenko clung to power, leading to the largest street protests in Belarusian history and shocking authorities in Minsk and Moscow.
Eleven days later, on August 20, Navalny was poisoned with a chemical nerve agent. Navalny later cooperated with the investigative news group Bellingcat, and was able to prove that a team of agents from Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB, was responsible for tracking him down and poisoning him.
They identified several clients by name. Navalny phoned someone and tricked him into confessing to his role in the failed assassination attempt.
Navalny's mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, was not allowed to see his body. On Saturday, she traveled to Polar Wolf Prison above the Arctic Circle in the Yamalo-Nenets region, where he died, and to the local morgue. Prison officials gave her a sheet of paper giving the time of death — 2:17 p.m. — but morgue officials denied the body existed.
After Russian exile newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe reported that Navalny's body was already in the morgue in Salekhard, the regional capital, Lyudmila Navalnaya and Navalny's lawyers went to the morgue early Monday morning and were again denied access, Navalny's press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, who lives outside Russia, was posted on X.
“They were not allowed in. One of the lawyers was literally kicked out,” Yarmysh wrote. “When employees were asked if Alexei’s body was there, they did not answer.”
Members of Navalny's team also called his death a “murder,” while several world leaders, including President Biden, said Putin bears responsibility for his death.
Amid fears that the true cause of death may never be known, Yarmysh said officials from Russia's Investigative Committee, which deals with major crimes, had expanded their investigations into the matter.
“They lie, buy time for themselves and don't even hide it,” Yarmysh said. Monday morning.
Later on Monday, she said the Russian Investigative Committee had rejected the mother and lawyer's requests to hand over the body, telling them it would be kept for at least another two weeks. Investigators claimed that his body would undergo some kind of “chemical examination” for another 14 days, Yarmysh posted on X.
On Saturday, prison officials initially told Lyudmila Navalnaya that her son died of “sudden death syndrome,” and Investigative Committee officials later gave contradictory accounts, stating that the cause was unknown.
Putin, who has long made a point of never uttering Navalny's name, has not commented on the death of the activist who for more than a decade was seen as the Russian leader's most attractive opponent.
Navalny was barred from running in Russia's 2018 presidential election against Putin, following his unexpectedly strong performance in the 2013 Moscow mayoral race.
Navalny faced numerous criminal charges, which he and many independent analysts said were fabricated for the purpose of political revenge.
Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Monday that Putin had not issued any reaction to Navalny's death and that the Kremlin was “not involved” in the issue of returning his body to his family. Asked whether the Kremlin was interested in ensuring a comprehensive investigation into the cause of death, Peskov replied: “Those measures that are provided for by Russian legislation are being implemented.”
He added: “The investigation into Navalny’s death is ongoing, and the necessary measures are being taken.” “But the results have not been announced yet. It is not known about them.”
Peskov also criticized world leaders who said the Russian president was responsible for Navalny's death, calling it “absolutely unacceptable to make such rude, blatant statements.”
Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the France-based R-Politics analytical group, said Navalnaya will face difficulties as she tries to fill her husband's position and become a major political figure with resonance within Russia.
“Despite potential recognition and respect from the international community, the lack of significant support within Russia could significantly limit her effectiveness as a political figure,” she said, adding that Tikhanovskaya struggled to be relevant within Belarus, even when she was valued by Western leaders.
“Her success will depend on her ability to develop a unique political style, articulate her vision, and assemble a professional team that does not alienate potential supporters,” Stanovaya said.
The pro-Kremlin blogger, Sergei Markov, falsely claimed that Navalny was a MI6 and CIA agent, ominously warning that she could share his fate.
“She needs to be more careful,” Markov wrote on Telegram. “The American and British intelligence services are now very cruel. Our advice to them is to escape to a quiet place.”
Tens of thousands of Russians have signed appeals to return Navalny's body to his family and give them access to video camera footage and body camera footage from the prison and its staff.
More than 56,000 people signed a petition organized by the legal rights group OVD-Info to the Investigative Committee demanding that his body be returned to the family, and more than 21,000 people signed a petition submitted by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and longtime editor of Novaya Gazeta. Dmitry Muratov, demands that the family be given access to surveillance footage from the prison.
Published by independent Russian media Mediazona video On Sunday, a convoy, including two police cars and a prison truck, was traveling on Friday evening from the Polar Wolf prison colony towards Salekhard, likely carrying Navalny's body.
Navalny's body was initially taken to the Salekhard district hospital, rather than directly to the morgue as is usual in the case of deaths in prison, Novaya Gazeta Europe reported, citing an ambulance paramedic. The body was later transported to the morgue, according to what paramedics said.
Rauhala reported from Brussels. Natalia Abakumova and Marie Ilyushina in Riga, Latvia contributed to this report.
