SA day before the planned funeral of Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalnyj, increased police patrols were seen around the Borisovskoye cemetery in the southeast of the Russian capital on Thursday. According to independent media, officers also checked the IDs and bags of passers-by. In addition, numerous barriers were brought to the cemetery grounds.
The funeral of opposition leader Navalnyj, who died in a prison camp two weeks ago, is planned for this Friday. Navalny’s supporters have warned of police violence against mourners after hundreds of people across Russia were arrested while laying flowers in the past two weeks.
Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysch also complained on Platform X that the authorities were continuing to hinder preparations for the funeral service. It has still not been possible to organize a hearse to bring Navalnyj’s body to the church in honor of the icon of the Mother of God “Relieve my grief” in the Marjino district. The funeral service there is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. local time (12 p.m. CET), before burial is planned at the cemetery, about half an hour’s walk away. But the Moscow funeral homes received threatening calls from unknown people who warned them not to transport the body, as Yarmysch wrote.
Navalny’s team had previously complained about pressure and attempts at blackmail from the Russian authorities. They want to force them to hold the popular politician’s funeral secretly, as Navalny’s mother Lyudmila Navalnaya said several times.
According to official information, Navalny died on February 16 at the age of just 47 in a prison camp north of the Arctic Circle. The sharp critic of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin was physically very weakened by a poison attack in 2020 and constant solitary confinement in the camp. His supporters and many international observers therefore agree that there can be no question of a “natural” cause of death, as is stated on the death certificate.
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