Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny‘s widow accused the Kremlin on Monday of hiding his body to cover up killing him in an Arctic penal colony.
Vowing to continue her late husband’s fight against President Vladimir Putin, Yulia Navalnaya called on Russians to rally around her in a lengthy video address.
Her comments came as Navalny’s team said his mother and lawyers were denied access to his body and told the probe into what killed him had been extended, with the body under “chemical examination” for another 14 days.
“Three days ago, Vladimir Putin killed my husband,” Navalnaya, 47, said in a nine-minute video posted to YouTube ahead of her meeting with European Union foreign ministers in Brussels. She said authorities were waiting for traces of “yet another Putin’s Novichok” to leave his body — referring to the military nerve agent used to poison him years ago.
The Kremlin has denied involvement in that poisoning and dismissed suggestions that Putin was behind his death on Friday.
Navalnaya vowed to continue her husband’s efforts to secure a free Russia.
“We know exactly why Putin killed Alexei three days ago. We will tell you soon about it. We will also definitely find out who exactly and how exactly this crime was committed. We will name names and show faces,” she said in the video.
“The most important thing we can do for Alexei and for ourselves is to continue to fight,” she added.
“I will continue the life work of Alexei Navalny,” Navalnaya said. “I call on you to stand with me.”
Russia’s prison authorities said Navalny died suddenly after collapsing following a walk in the remote “Polar Wolf” prison on Friday afternoon.
The news sparked outrage, with many international leaders pointing the finger at Putin while Russia’s scattered opposition reeled from the loss of one of the Kremlin’s fiercest foes. Moscow has derided the West’s response and urged the world to wait for the results of an official investigation into his death.
But Navalny’s supporters have dismissed the official version of events.
And on Monday morning, spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said that Navalny’s mother and his lawyers had been denied access to the nearby morgue. The group were told that the probe into his cause of death had been extended and it was unclear how long it would take, she said.
“They were not allowed to go in. One of the lawyers was literally pushed out. When the staff was asked if Alexey’s body was there, they did not answer,” Yarmysh said in a series of posts on X. The drama centered on the Arctic town of Salekhard, where prison officials said over the weekend his body had been taken, according to Yarmysh.
The country’s main investigative body, the Investigative Committee, told the group that “The cause of death is still ‘unknown,'” Yarmysh said. “They lie, buy time for themselves and do not even hide it,” she added.
Later, Yarmysh said that “the investigators told the lawyers and Alexey’s mother that they would not give them the body. The body will be under some sort of “chemical examination” for another 14 days.”
