Aleksei Navalny's allies confirm his death

Aleksei A. Navalny's political allies confirmed his death on Saturday and said his mother had received official notification.

Kira Yarmysh, Mr. Navalny's spokeswoman, said in a statement on

“We demand that the body of Aleksei Navalny be immediately released to his family,” Ms. Yarmysh said in her statement.

Ms. Yarmysh is a member of a team of allies of Mr. Navalny. Working from outside Russia, they continued to carry out his work after his 2020 poisoning and subsequent imprisonment, publishing his statements and organizing political events.

Mr Navalny's mother arrived at the penal colony in the Kharp settlement on Saturday morning, Ms Yarmysh said in a video rack. They had to wait two hours before a prison official came out to say that Mr Navalny's body had been transferred to Salekhard.

Lawyers and rights groups said the process to retrieve Mr Navalny's body could take several days.

Prison authorities said Mr. Navalny fell unconscious and died after walking through the penal colony above the Arctic Circle, where he was transferred in late December.

In their rack About his death, Russian prison authorities said the causes were “being determined.” Local investigators said they had launched a “procedural review” into Mr Navalny's death. They said that “a series of investigative and operational measures are being carried out to determine all the circumstances surrounding the incident.”