Yulia Navalnya, widow of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, today attributed her husband’s death to Vladimir Putin and accused the Kremlin of hiding his body to allow traces of poison to disappear.
In a video message, Navalnya, 47, said: “Vladimir Putin killed my husband.”
She vowed to continue her husband’s work and fight for a free Russia with the help of its citizens.
“I want to live in a free Russia, I want to build a free Russia,” he said in the video message titled “I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny.”
Navalnaya accused Russian authorities of hiding Navalny’s body and waiting for traces of the Novichok nerve agent to disappear from his body.
In a video message, Yulia Navalnya, 47 (pictured), said: “Vladimir Putin killed my husband.”
Just two minutes after the time Navalny’s death was reported (2:17 p.m.), the Russian penitentiary service issued a statement revealing his death.
“By killing Alexei, Putin killed half of me: half of my heart and half of my soul,” Navalnaya said.
‘But I still have the other half and that tells me I have no right to give up. “I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny, I will continue fighting for our country.”
“I urge you to stand beside me,” he said. ‘I ask you to share the rage with me. Rage, anger, hatred towards those who dared to kill our future.’
‘I address you with the words of Alexei, in which I firmly believe: ‘There is no shame in doing a little. It’s shameful not to do anything. It’s embarrassing to be intimidated.
‘Russia: the free, peaceful, happy and beautiful Russia of the future that my husband dreamed of… I want to live in that Russia. I want my children and Alexei’s to live in that Russia.
“I want to build with you what Alexei Navalny proposed. Only then – and there is no other way – will the senseless death he suffered not be in vain.
‘Fight and don’t give up. I am not afraid… and you will fear nothing.’
Lyudmila Navalnaya, mother of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and her lawyer Alexei Tsvetkov leave an office of the regional department of the Investigative Committee in the city of Salekhard.
Just two minutes after the time Navalny’s death was reported (2:17 p.m.), the Russian penitentiary service issued a statement revealing his death.
Navalny’s allies say they know why her husband was killed and will soon reveal details, including the names of people involved in his murder. The Kremlin has denied involvement in her death.
Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila, has been unable to recover his body since his death on Friday.
Kira Yarmysh, a legal adviser close to the dissident, said authorities told Lyudmila that his body would only be released after a full post-mortem examination.
The prison service has been accused of delaying the return of his body.
He was reportedly told that an initial autopsy was inconclusive and that a second one needed to be performed.
Furthermore, Lyudmila was initially told that his body had been taken to the city of Salekhard, near the penal colony where he was detained, but when she arrived, the morgue was closed.
The Russian prison service announced Navalny’s death on Friday.
It was recently reported that Navalny died of “sudden death syndrome,” but no details were given to support this claim.
Just two minutes after the time Navalny’s death was reported (2:17 p.m.), the Russian penitentiary service issued a statement revealing his death.
Four minutes later, a Kremlin-controlled Telegram channel claimed that he had died from a blood clot, and just seven minutes later, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was speaking to the media about it.
Since news of his death broke, his family and allies have accused the Kremlin of deliberately hiding his body.
Independent outlet Novaya Gazeta Europa reported yesterday that Navalny’s body shows signs of bruising caused by being restrained while suffering a seizure.
It was recently reported that Navalny died of “sudden death syndrome,” but no details were given to support this claim.
Police detain a woman during a rally in memory of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny near the Mourning Wall, a monument to victims of political repression in Moscow.
Women with red carnations arrive to lay flowers for the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at the “Wall of Mourning” monument
The media outlet spoke with a paramedic from the Salekhard ambulance service, near the IK-3 penal colony, also known as ‘Polar Wolf’, in the town of Kharp, in the Yamalo-Nenetsk region, about 2,000 kilometers northeast of Moscow, where Navalny was detained.
Paramedics found bruises on the body of Navalny, who is now in police custody in a morgue at the Salekhard district clinical hospital, according to the independent media outlet.
“Normally the bodies of people who die in prison are taken directly to the Forensic Medicine Office on Glazkova Street, but in this case for some reason they were taken to the clinical hospital,” the anonymous paramedic told the outlet.
‘As an experienced paramedic, I can say that the injuries described by those who saw them appeared to be due to seizures.
‘If a person has convulsions and others try to restrain him but the convulsions are very strong, then bruising appears. They also said that she had a hematoma on her chest, the kind that occurs from indirect cardiac massage.
“So they tried to resuscitate him and he probably died of cardiac arrest,” the paramedic said, adding, “But no one is saying anything about why he went into cardiac arrest.”
More to follow.