- More than 200 people were detained Saturday following a vigil for slain opposition leader and Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
- Navalny's death was announced by Russia's Federal Prison Service, which claimed that he died after “feeling unwell after taking a walk.”
- The Russian government denies involvement and blames Western countries for Navalny's death, but has since been accused of storing his body.
Police detained dozens of Russians paying tribute to opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Saturday, but his spokesman accused authorities of delaying releasing his body to relatives. did.
The 47-year-old Kremlin critic died in an Arctic prison on Friday after spending more than three years behind bars, sparking anger and condemnation from Western leaders and supporters.
His death, which the West blames on the Kremlin, has taken the figurehead of Russia's opposition just a month before elections that will extend President Vladimir Putin's grip on power.
Makeshift memorials and small protests commemorating the leader who died on Saturday were quickly dispersed by Russian police, who say more than 200 people have been detained so far, according to human rights groups.
AFP reporters watched as hundreds of tearful mourners laid flowers in the snow as two people were detained at a pop-up memorial in central Moscow.
A note left among the flowers read: “The death of Alexei Navalny is the worst thing that can happen to Russia.''
People lay flowers to late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at the Monument to Victims of Political Repression in St. Petersburg on February 17, 2024.
Mr Navalny's lawyer and mother Lyudmila arrived in the remote northern town of Salekhard on Saturday and was told that his body was being kept in a local morgue.
“The prison was closed even though we said it was open and that Navalny's body was there,” Navalny's team said on Telegram.
His spokeswoman Kira Yarmis accused authorities of “lying” about examining the body to avoid handing it over to the family.
“It is clear that the killers want to cover their tracks,” Navalny's team said in a follow-up Telegram post.
President Putin: 'Responsible'
Despite a chorus of angry condemnations from Western leaders, the Kremlin made no mention of his death on Saturday after initially pushing back on accusations that they were responsible.
A minute's silence was observed for Putin at the G7 foreign ministers' meeting in Munich on Saturday, with US President Joe Biden pointing the finger of blame at him.
“Make no mistake about it: President Putin is responsible for Mr. Navalny's death,” he said on Friday.
If reports about Alexei Navalny's death are true, Russian authorities will tell their own story.
But don't get me wrong.
President Putin is responsible for this death.
— President Biden (@POTUS) February 16, 2024
Russian Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov said Navalny's death was a “murder” and that he was “tortured and tormented” throughout the three years he spent in prison.
In the capital Moscow, police detained at least 15 people who were laying flowers at a monument to victims of Soviet repression, independent media Sota reported.
In one video posted by the same outlet, a woman can be heard screaming as she is forcibly restrained by a large number of police officers, and onlookers can be heard shouting “disgrace”.
Thousands of supporters mourn the death of Alexei Navalny in St. Petersburg at the Monument Cemetery for Victims of Political Repression.
Other footage showed people in civilian clothes removing flowers from a monument in the capital's Lubyanka Square overnight as police cordoned off the area.
Navalny's death was announced by Russia's Federal Prison Service, which said on Friday that Navalny died after “feeling unwell after taking a walk.”
Russian news agencies reported that doctors from a local hospital arrived within minutes and spent “more than 30 minutes” trying to resuscitate him.
Navalny's wife, Yulia Navalnaya, said she would hold Putin personally responsible and called on the international community to “unite and defeat this evil and horrible regime.”
One of Navalny's lawyers, Leonid Solovyov, told Novaya Gazeta that Navalny was “normal” when another lawyer saw him on Wednesday.
Footage from Thursday's court hearing in the prison colony showed Navalny smiling and joking as he addressed the judge via video link. State media reported that he did not complain of any health complaints during the session.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference hours after news of her husband's death, Yulia Navalnaya said that Putin and his aides “must be punished for everything they have done to our country, my family and my husband.” “It will be done,” he said.
Navalny led street protests for more than a decade and became well-known through his anti-corruption campaign.
Also read | More than 100 people arrested at Russia's Navalny monument
Exposés of government corruption posted on his YouTube channel have racked up millions of views and brought tens of thousands of Russians to the streets, despite strict anti-protest laws.
He was jailed in early 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he was recovering from near-fatal poisoning with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok.
He was sentenced to 19 years in prison in a series of incidents widely condemned by rights groups and seen in the West as retaliation for his opposition to the Kremlin.
His decision to return to Russia despite facing imprisonment brought him praise around the world.
“I'm not afraid, please don't be afraid,” he told his supporters after arriving in Moscow, just before he was taken into custody on charges related to past fraud.
His arrest in 2021 sparked the largest demonstrations in Russia in decades, with thousands of people detained at nationwide rallies calling for his release.
From behind bars, Navalny staunchly opposed Moscow's all-out military offensive against Ukraine, but watched helplessly as the Kremlin dismantled his organization and locked up his allies.
Dozens of his most prominent supporters went into exile and continued to campaign against the attack on Ukraine and the repression inside Russia.
Late last year, Navalny was transferred to a remote prison colony in the Arctic known as “Arctic Wolves” in Russia's Yamalo-Nenets region in northern Siberia.
He said in January that walking through the prison in sub-zero temperatures was a daily routine.
The 47-year-old Kremlin critic died Friday in an Arctic prison.
Since his incarceration, he has spent more than 300 days in solitary confinement and was detained by prison authorities on suspicion of minor violations of prison rules.
Navalny's last post on his Telegram channel, which he manages through his lawyers and team in exile, was a tribute to his wife posted on Valentine's Day.
In a documentary filmed before his return to Russia, Navalny was asked what message he would want to leave with the Russian people if he were to die or be killed.
“Don't give up. Don't give up, don't give up,” he said.
“All that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. So don't do anything.”
