Team confirmed death

Navalny’s team confirms death: “He was murdered”

Alexei Navalny, who died on Friday, at one of his many court hearings last year

(Bild: ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Following the death of Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny, his body appears to be untraceable for the time being. Navalny's mother and a lawyer were unable to find any trace of his body in the morgue where he was supposed to be. "It is obvious that they are lying," said Navalny's spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, referring to the Russian authorities.

She had previously confirmed the death of the Kremlin opponent. His mother had been informed that he had died on Friday, February 16, at 2.17 p.m., she explained on Platform X. "Alexei Navalny was murdered," she also wrote. An employee of the penal colony had said that his body was now in the northern Siberian town of Salekhard, where "examinations" were being carried out on it. Yarmysh demanded that the body be handed over to Navalny's family immediately.

Mother and lawyer traveled there
The Russian newspaper "Novaya Gazeta" reported that Navalny's mother Lyudmila Navalnaya had traveled to Salekhard together with one of her son's lawyers. Navalny was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison. Most recently, he was imprisoned in the "Polar Wolf" penal camp near the village of Kharp in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug in northern Russia.

No trace of the body
In the morgue in the town of Salekhard, almost 50 kilometers from the Charp prison camp, his mother and lawyer were unable to discover any trace of Navalny's body, reported spokeswoman Yarmysh. As a result, the mother was initially unable to identify the body.

The morgue was closed and the lawyer was unable to get a satisfactory answer via the contact telephone number posted at the entrance. "He was told that he was already the seventh caller that day," wrote Jarmysch. "And Alexei's body is not with them in the morgue."

They literally lie every time, make us run in circles and cover their tracks.

Kira Jarmysch, Sprecherin von Alexej Nawalny

Another of Navalny's lawyers, who contacted the investigative commission in Salekhard, was told that "the cause of Alexei's death has not yet been established" and that a new examination of the tissue had been carried out. The results should be known next week, according to Kira Jarmysch.

The commission has stated that the body will only be handed over once the investigation has been completed. "It is obvious that they are lying and doing everything they can to avoid having to hand over the body," she wrote on X. The lawyers had only just been told that the investigation had been completed.

"Russian snivelling is out of place"
In the meantime, Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP) forbade criticism of the Moscow government's reactions to Navalny's death. Those who were most upset on Friday should behave most calmly, Schallenberg said on Saturday on the fringes of the Munich Security Conference. "Russian snivelling is out of place here," he said in response to the Russian embassy's protest against a comment by Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen.

Schallenberg at the Munich Security Conference

(Bild: APA/BMEIA/MICHAEL GRUBER)

In his immediate reaction to X, Van der Bellen had spoken of "Vladimir Putin and his murderous regime". The Russian embassy in Vienna countered with a protest note to the Foreign Office. Schallenberg said that he was not taking part in conspiracy theories. At the same time, he clarified: "We know that there was a poison attack on him, that he was sent to the gulag." Unlike many international politicians, Schallenberg avoided directly blaming Moscow after Navalny's death, but called for a full investigation into the circumstances of his death.

Demonstration outside the Russian embassy in Vienna
In numerous European cities, including Vienna, people demonstrated in front of the respective Russian embassies and called Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin a murderer. Despite arrests and pressure from the authorities, public expressions of sympathy for Navalny also continued in Russia. According to information from human rights activists, more than 200 people have now been arrested across the country.

Alexei Navalny, who died on Friday, at one of his many court hearings last year

(Bild: ASSOCIATED PRESS)

"Not killed, but murdered" is written on this Russian woman's poster.

(Bild: AP)

Police arrest a man who wanted to lay flowers for Navalny in St. Petersburg.

(Bild: ASSOCIATED PRESS)

In Moscow and other cities, men in civilian clothes or city cleaning workers spontaneously cleared memorials erected for the 47-year-old, who died in custody in the polar region under unexplained circumstances. They put flowers in bin bags and collected candles and pictures. Media in many parts of Russia reported on Saturday that fresh flowers were nevertheless still being laid, candles lit and pictures put up in memory of Navalny.

"Great fear of a dead man"
"How great even the power apparatus' fear of a dead man is, when even laying flowers in his memory is considered a crime," wrote Russian Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the pro-Kremlin newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov, on Telegram on Saturday.