Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, who died in prison earlier this month, will be buried on Friday in Moscow, his spokeswoman said, after previously accusing authorities of trying to interfere with the activist’s funeral.
Navalny will be buried in the city’s Borisov cemetery following a funeral service at a church in the Marino district of southeast Moscow, Kira Yarmysh said Wednesday in a social media message that asked his supporters to attend.
Biden says ‘Putin and his thugs’ caused Navalny’s death
Biden says ‘Putin and his thugs’ caused Navalny’s death
Even amid an unprecedented Kremlin crackdown on dissent, the scale of the turnout is likely to be an indicator of the strength of opposition to his rule just weeks before the March 17 election that will hand him another six years in power.
Hundreds of people have been arrested after laying flowers in Navalny’s memory in Moscow and other cities since he died February 16 in a remote Arctic prison camp.
Yarmysh said on Tuesday that Navalny’s allies tried unsuccessfully to organise a farewell for him in Moscow, but nobody had been willing to hire out a hall to them.
“Some of them say the place is fully booked. Some refuse when we mention the surname ‘Navalny’,” she said. “In one place, we were told that the funeral agencies were forbidden to work with us.”
Talks were under way before his death that could have seen the Russian dissident freed in a prisoner exchange with the US and Germany, a western official said.
Is widow Yulia Navalnaya the new face of Russian opposition?
Is widow Yulia Navalnaya the new face of Russian opposition?
Penitentiary officials said Navalny, 47, died after falling ill at the maximum-security prison camp where he was serving 19 years on extremism charges.
Navalny’s widow, Yulia, has accused Putin of murder and vowed to continue his fight against the Kremlin. She also feared a disruption and arrests at her husband’s funeral.
“I’m not sure yet whether it will be peaceful or whether the police will arrest those who have come to say goodbye to my husband,” Navalnaya told the European Parliament.
“Putin is the leader of an organised criminal gang,” said Navalnaya, who has blamed the Russian president for her husband’s “murder”. “You are not dealing with a politician but with a bloody mobster.”
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse