Yulia Navalnya, the widow of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, today laid her husband’s death at the feet of Vladimir Putin and accused the Kremlin of hiding his body to make traces of poison disappear.
In a video message, 47-year-old Navalnya said: “Vladimir Putin killed my husband.”
She promised to continue her husband’s work and fight for a free Russia with the help of its citizens.
“I want to live in a free Russia, I want to build a free Russia,” she said in the video message titled “I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny.”
Navalnaya accused Russian authorities of hiding Navalny’s body and waiting for traces of the Novichok nerve agent to disappear from his body.
In a video message, Yulia Navalnya, 47, (pictured): “Vladimir Putin killed my husband.”
Just two minutes after the time Navalny was said to have died – 2:17 p.m. – Russia’s prison service released a statement revealing his death
“By killing Alexei, Putin killed half of me, half of my heart and half of my soul,” Navalnaya said.
“But I still have the other half, and it tells me I have no right to give up. I will continue Alexei Navalny’s work, continue to fight for our country.”
“I urge you to come and stand next to me,” she said. ‘I ask you to share the anger with me. Rage, anger, hatred for those who dared to kill our future.”
“I address you in the words of Alexei, which I strongly believe in: ‘There is no shame in doing a little. It is shame to do nothing. It’s a shame to be intimidated.’
‘Russia – the free, peaceful, happy, beautiful Russia of the future that my husband dreamed of… I want to live in that Russia. I want my and Alexei’s children to live in that Russia.
“I want to build that together with you, what Alexei Navalny has set out. Only in this way – and there is no other way – will the senseless death he suffered not be in vain.
‘Fight and don’t give up. I am not afraid – and you will not be afraid of anything.”
Lyudmila Navalnaya, the mother of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and his lawyer Alexei Tsvetkov walk out of an office of the regional branch of the Investigative Committee in the city of Salekhard
Just two minutes after the time Navalny was said to have died – 2:17 p.m. – Russia’s prison service released a statement revealing his death
Navalny’s allies say they know why her husband was killed and would soon reveal the details, including the names of the people involved in the killing. The Kremlin has denied any involvement in his death.
Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila, has been unable to recover his body since his death on Friday.
A close legal aide to the dissident, Kira Yarmysh, said Lyudmila, who was seen today at a regional office of the Russian Investigative Committee, was told by authorities that his body would only be handed over after a full post-mortem examination.
The prison service is accused of delaying the return of his body.
She was reportedly told that an initial autopsy was inconclusive and that a second one had to be performed.
Furthermore, Lyudmila was initially told that his body had been taken to the town of Salekhard, near the penal colony where he was being held, but when she arrived the morgue was closed.
CCTV footage was leaked last night allegedly showing a midnight motorcade consisting of prison vehicles and two highway patrol cars taking Navalny’s corpse from the Polar Wolf prison.
Since reports of his death were published, his family and allies have accused the Kremlin of deliberately hiding his body
This handout photo, published by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on his Instagram account, shows himself and his wife Yulia posing for a photo at a hospital in Berlin, Germany
In surveillance footage of the motorcade at midnight, the Soviet-designed Federal Penitentiary Service van believed to be carrying Navalny is clearly seen flanked by an unmarked car and several police vehicles.
The ride from the Polar Wolf prison in Kharp went first to Labytnangi and then crossed the frozen Ob, the world’s seventh longest river, to Salekhard, according to independent news outlet Mediazona, which obtained footage of the macabre journey.
The journey across the thick ice may have ended in a hospital morgue, where paramedics revealed Navalny’s body was covered in bruises, according to another news outlet, Novaya Gazeta Europe.
Russia’s prison service announced Navalny’s death on Friday.
Most recently, it was reported that Navalny died of ‘sudden death syndrome’, but no details were given to substantiate this claim.
Just two minutes after the time Navalny was said to have died – 2:17 p.m. – Russia’s prison service released a statement revealing his death.
Four minutes later, a Kremlin-controlled Telegram channel claimed he had died of a blood clot, and just seven minutes later Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov spoke to the media about it.
Since reports of his death were published, his family and allies have accused the Kremlin of deliberately hiding his body.
Independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe reported yesterday that Navalny’s body showed signs of bruises caused by being held down while having a seizure.
Most recently it was reported that Navalny died of ‘sudden death syndrome’, but no details were given to substantiate this claim
Police officers detain a woman during a rally in memory of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at the Wall of Grief monument to the victims of political repression in Moscow
Women with red carnations arrive to lay flowers for the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at the “Wall of Grief” monument
The news channel spoke to a paramedic from the Salekhard ambulance service near the IK-3 penal colony, also known as ‘Polar Wolf’, in the city of Kharp, in the Yamalo-Nenetsk region, about 2,000 kilometers northeast of Moscow, where Navalny was held.
Paramedics found bruises on Navalny’s body, which is now under police guard in a mortuary at Salekhard’s clinical district hospital, the independent news outlet said.
“Usually the bodies of people who die in prison are taken directly to the Office of Forensic Medicine on Glazkova Street, but in this case for some reason they were taken to the clinical hospital,” the anonymous paramedic told the outlet .
‘As an experienced paramedic I can say that the injuries described by those who saw them appeared to be the result of convulsions.
‘If a person has convulsions and others try to hold him down, but the convulsions are very violent, bruises appear. They also said he had a bruise on his chest, the kind that results from indirect chest compressions.
“So they tried to resuscitate him, and he probably died of cardiac arrest,” the paramedic said, adding, “But no one is saying anything about why he went into cardiac arrest.”
Yesterday, the British and American ambassadors to Russia laid flowers at a memorial to Navalny set up in Moscow, while hundreds of Russian citizens were arrested for paying tribute to the dead dissident.
US Ambassador Lynne Tracy and Britain’s Nigel Casey both paid their respects to Navalny at the Solovetsky Stone monument in Moscow, which was erected to pay tribute to the victims of political repression.
The stone was made with a large boulder taken from the Solovetsky Islands, where the first camp of the Gulag political prison system was established, and can be found near the historic building of the Federal Security Service in Moscow.
More to follow.