MOSCOW (Reuters) – The remains of Alexei Navalny were buried on Friday in a Moscow cemetery following a brief religious ceremony in his memory in a church in the Russian capital.
Thousands of people gathered in front of the Borissovskoye cemetery, on the other side of the Moskva River, to pay their last respects to the opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, two weeks after his sudden death at the age of 47, in a penal colony in the Russian Arctic.
His wife Yulia Navalnaïa, in exile, paid tribute to him on the social network X shortly after his burial, thanking him for “26 years of absolute happiness”.
“I don’t know how to live without you, but I will do my best to make sure you are happy and proud of me up there. I don’t know if I can do it, but I will try,” she said. declared.
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Exiled and designated by Russian authorities as extremists supported by the United States, Alexeï Navalny’s allies have called on those wishing to honor the memory of the latter but unable to attend his funeral to go to specific sites in their city at 16:00 GMT.
Alexeï Navalny’s allies accuse Vladimir Putin of having assassinated the opponent to prevent him from being part of a prisoner exchange – a hypothesis that the head of the Kremlin would have considered intolerable.
They provided no evidence to support their accusations, but promised to expose the circumstances of the assassination of Alexei Navalny.
The Kremlin denies any involvement in the death of the opponent, also claiming not to be aware of an agreement which would have concerned the release of Navalny.
The death certificate indicates that Alexei Navalny died of natural causes, Navalny’s mother and allies reported.
At the origin of large street demonstrations and investigations into suspicions of corruption within the Russian government, Alexeï Navalny represented the most important political challenge for Vladimir Putin since he came to power in 1999.
But the opponent was imprisoned following several legal proceedings against him, for accusations of fraud and extremism, and sentenced to more than 30 years in prison.
Most of his supporters fled the country or were imprisoned.
Alexeï Navalny was placed in detention upon his voluntary return to Russia in 2021, after being treated in Germany following poisoning via a nerve agent.
Vladimir Putin has made no comment on the death of Alexei Navalny. He hadn’t mentioned her name for years.
The Russian president is expected to be comfortably re-elected in two weeks for a six-year term.
The Kremlin said it considered the statements of Alexeï Navalny’s allies as provocations and warned that the police would intervene to enforce the law.
(Reporting by Reuters, written by Andrew Osborn, French version Jean Terzian and Kate Entringer, editing by Blandine Hénault)
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