Russia tells Alexei Navalny’s mother: ‘Agree to a private funeral for your son within three hours, otherwise we will bury him in prison’

Russia has issued an ultimatum to Alexei Navalny’s mother after she demanded Kremlin officials immediately return her son’s body.

Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said today that Russian authorities had told Lyudmila Navalnaya that he would be buried in the penal colony where he died unless they agreed within three hours to let him rest without a public funeral.

Yarmash said Navalnaya refused and continued to demand that his body be handed over to her. There was no immediate comment from authorities.

Navalny, Putin’s biggest domestic critic, fell unconscious and died suddenly last Friday at the age of 47 after walking through the “Polar Wolf” penal colony above the Arctic Circle, where he was serving a three-decade prison sentence, the prison service said.

Navalnaya, 69, revealed she was secretly taken to the mortuary in Salekhard to see his body, but claims state investigators are refusing to hand it over to her for a funeral.

She made the accusation in a YouTube video published Thursday in which she accused officials of “threatening” to do “something” to Navalny’s body if she does not agree to a secret funeral without mourners.

Navalnaya also claimed that an investigator warned that “time is not on your side, corpses decompose.”

But the grieving mother has hit out at the “illegal” practice, saying: “I demand Alexei’s body be released immediately so I can bury him as a human being.”

Navalnaya’s revelations suggest that state investigators are trying to prevent an independent examination of the Russian opposition leader’s body for signs of torture or murder, as well as an open funeral where thousands could come to pay tribute.

In the video, Navalnaya said: “I have just left the building of the Salekhard City Investigative Committee.

‘I spent almost a day there alone, with investigators and forensic experts.

‘The lawyer wasn’t allowed in until after lunch today. Last night they secretly took me to the morgue, where they showed me Alexei.

“Investigators claim they know the cause of death.”

She didn’t say if she knows what this is.

Supporters of the West and Navalny, including his widow Yulia, 47, say Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death.

The Kremlin has denied his involvement and said Western claims he was behind the death were unacceptable.

Putin himself has not publicly commented on Navalny’s death, but it has deepened the yawning schism in relations between Moscow and the West caused by the nearly two-year war in Ukraine.

“They have all the medical and legal documents ready that I have seen,” Navalnaya added. “And I signed the death certificate. By law, they had to hand Alexei’s body over to me immediately, but they haven’t done that yet.

“Instead, they are blackmailing me and imposing conditions on where, when and how Alexei should be buried.

‘This is illegal. I have seen orders coming to them in my presence, either from the Kremlin or from the central apparatus of the Commission of Inquiry.

‘They want it to happen in secret, without goodbyes. They want to take me to the edge of a cemetery, to a new grave and say: “Here lies your son.” I don’t agree with this.

“I want everyone, those who love Alexei and for whom his death has become a personal tragedy, to have the opportunity to say goodbye to him.

“I’m recording this video because they started threatening me and looking me in the eye. They say if I don’t agree to the secret burial, they will do something with my son’s body.’

Since Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine, the space for dissent in Russia has shrunk even further. Russian authorities have tightened speech restrictions and jailed critics, often ordinary people, sometimes for decades.

Hundreds of people who laid flowers in Navalny’s memory across Russia were arrested.

Navalnaya appeared in a video earlier this week and appealed to Putin to hand over her son’s body to her so she can bury him with dignity.

Standing outside the Arctic penal colony where Navalny died last Friday, she told the camera: “For the fifth day I was not able to see him.”

“They wouldn’t release his body to me,” she said.

“And they don’t even tell me where he is,” a black-clad Navalnaya said in the video, showing the barbed wire of Penal Colony No. 3 in Kharp, about 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow.

“I’ll be in touch, Vladimir Putin,” she said. “The resolution of this matter depends solely on you. Let me finally see my son.”

She mentioned one state investigator – Voropaev – who “openly” told her: “Time is not on your side. The body is decomposing.”

She said: ‘I don’t want any special conditions, I just want everything to be done according to the law.’

She added: “I demand that Alexei’s body be released immediately so that I can bury him as a human being.”

Russian authorities have said Navalny’s cause of death is still unknown and declined to release his body over the next two weeks as preliminary investigations continued, members of his team said.

They accused the government of waiting to hide evidence.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has dismissed allegations of a cover-up, telling reporters that “these are absolutely unfounded, brazen accusations about the head of the Russian state.”

Navalny’s death has robbed the Russian opposition of its best-known and most inspiring politician, less than a month before elections that will almost certainly give Putin another six years in power.

Many Russians saw Navalny as a rare hope for political change amid Putin’s relentless crackdown on the opposition.

Navalny had been jailed since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recovering in Germany from a nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. He has since received three prison sentences on charges he dismissed as politically motivated.

Since Navalny’s death, about 400 people have been arrested across Russia as they tried to pay tribute to him with flowers and candles, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political arrests.

Authorities have cordoned off a number of memorials to the victims of Soviet repression across the country. These were used as a place to leave makeshift tributes to Navalny.

Police removed the flowers overnight, but more continue to appear.

Peskov said police acted “in accordance with the law” by detaining people paying tribute to Navalny.

More than 60,000 people have submitted requests to the government asking for Navalny’s remains to be transferred to his relatives, OVD-Info said.

After the latest ruling, which resulted in a 19-year prison sentence, Navalny said he understood he was “serving a life sentence, which is measured by the length of my life or the longevity of this regime.”

In a video on Monday, his widow Yulia Navalnaya said: “By killing Alexei, Putin has killed half of me, half of my heart and half of my soul.”

“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,” Navalnaya said.