NAVALNY MOM GIVEN FUNERAL ULTIMATUM
Private ceremony or burial at jail, authorities warn
An ally of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Friday that Russian authorities have given his mother a deadline to agree to forgo a public funeral or else they’ll bury him on prison grounds.
Investigators gave Lyudmila Navalnaya three hours to accept a proposal for a private funeral outside the public eye, Navalny’s close associate Ivan Zhdanov said on social media, another twist in the almost weeklong standoff with the authorities to retrieve the politician’s body.
Navalnaya is refusing to continue negotiations and demanding that authorities follow the law and hand over the body within 48 hours of determining the cause of death, which would be on Saturday, Zhdanov said. She also has filed a complaint accusing authorities of desecrating the body, he said. “She insists that the authorities allow a funeral and a memorial service to be held according to traditions,” Zhdanov said.
Navalny, 47, Russia’s most well-known opposition politician, unexpectedly died on Feb. 16 in an Arctic penal colony, prompting hundreds of Russians across the country to stream to impromptu memorials with flowers and candles.
Russian authorities have detained scores of people as they seek to suppress any major outpouring of sympathy for President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe before the presidential election he is almost certain to win.
Meanwhile, Canada is adding 10 people and 153 entities to its sanctions list, with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine set to pass the second-year mark this weekend.
Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly announced the new sanctions against Russia in co-ordination with the United States and the United Kingdom Friday morning.
Earlier Friday, the U.S. announced sanctions targeting more than 500 people and entities, and the U.K. added 50 to its own list over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and in retaliation for the death of Navalny.
Russia launched its military invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine says it has verified that more than 10,500 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and nearly 20,000 injured in the conflict.
Those Canada is sanctioning include a longtime aide to President Vladimir Putin as well as businessmen involved in industries like rail, construction and It.canada
and its allies are trying to damage Russia’s ability to continue waging war by sanctioning entities that provide the Russian military with goods and services.
Canada is also expanding the language of its ban on exports of goods to manufacture weapons to specifically bar the export of explosives and detonators used in the mining and construction industry.
Navalny’s mother and lawyers have been trying to retrieve his body since late last week — drawing support in those efforts from prominent Russians.
Lyudmila Navalnaya said Thursday that investigators allowed her to see her son’s body in the morgue in the Arctic city of Salekhard. She said she repeated her demand to have Navalny’s body returned to her and protested what she described as authorities trying to force her to agree to a secret burial. “They want it to do it secretly without a mourning ceremony,” she said.
Navalny’s spokesman, Kira Yarmysh, said on X, formerly Twitter, that Navalnaya was shown a medical certificate stating that the 47-year-old politician died of “natural causes.” Yarmysh didn’t specify what those were.
Posting on social media, prominent public figures have appealed directly to Putin to demand that he return Navalny’s body to his family.
“Just give Lyudmila her son,” Nobel Prize-winning journalist Dmitry Muratov said, adding, “It’s awkward to talk about this in a country that still considers itself Christian.”
Nadya Tolokonnikova, who became widely known after spending nearly two years in prison for taking part in a 2012 protest with the band Pussy Riot inside Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral, also released a video.
“We were imprisoned for allegedly trampling on traditional values. But no one tramples on traditional Russian values more than you, Putin, your officials and your priests who pray for all the murder that you do, year after year, day after day,” Tolokonnikova said.
“Putin, have a conscience, give his mother the body of her son,” she added.
In a video on Monday, Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, accused Putin of killing her husband and alleged the refusal to release his body was part of a coverup.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the allegations, calling them “absolutely unfounded, insolent accusations about the head of the Russian state.”