The death of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has been confirmed by his team, with his spokesperson stating that the Kremlin critic “was murdered.”
Navalny died at 2:17 p.m. (09:17 GMT) on February 16, according to the notification given to his mother, spokesperson Kira Yarmysh wrote in X on Saturday in the first confirmation from his allies.
Yarmysh quoted an employee at the “Polar Wolf” Arctic penal colony, where the 47-year-old was serving a 19-year sentence, as saying that his body was collected by investigators from the Russian Investigative Committee and was now in the city of Salekhard.
“We demand that Alexey Navalny's body be immediately handed over to his family,” he said.
Alexey Navalny was killed. His death occurred on February 16 at 2:17 p.m. local time, according to the official message to Alexey's mother.
An employee of the colony said Navalny's body is now in Salekhard. He was picked up by IC investigators. Now they are…
— Кира Ярмыш (@Kira_Yarmysh) February 17, 2024
The town is near the prison complex where investigators were conducting an “investigation,” Yarmysh said.
In a later update, Yarmysh said Navalny's lawyer had been informed that the cause of death had not yet been determined.
A second examination of Navalny's body has been carried out and the results will “supposedly” be available next week, Yarmysh posted on
Ivan Zhdanov, head of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, wrote in X that prison officials had told Navalny's mother that her son had died due to “sudden death syndrome” when he arrived at his former penal colony on Saturday. with one of Navalny's lawyers. .
Navalny's lawyer and mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, went to the local morgue in Salekhard on Saturday, but it was closed and Navalny's body was not where prison authorities said it was kept, their spokesperson added.
Alexey's lawyer and his mother arrived at the Salekhard morgue. It is closed, but the colony has assured them that it works and that Navalny's body is there. The lawyer called the phone number on the door. They told him he was the seventh person he called today. Alexey's body is… pic.twitter.com/CsPbONUBrn
— Кира Ярмыш (@Kira_Yarmysh) February 17, 2024
In an update, Yarmysh said authorities will not release Navalny's body to his relatives until the investigation is complete.
He later added: “Just an hour ago, the lawyers were informed that the investigation had concluded and that no crime had been established.
“They literally lie all the time, making us go around in circles and covering their tracks,” he wrote.
Russian authorities said Friday that Navalny became unconscious and died after a walk in the Kharp penal colony, about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow.
His death – less than a month before an election that will give Putin another six years in power – has distanced Putin from his greatest political enemy, who organized mass protests against the Kremlin and waged a crusade against corruption.
'His legacy will not die'
Yarmysh said in an interview that his team will keep alive Navalny's vision for change in Russia.
“We lost our leader, but we did not lose our ideas and our beliefs,” Yarmysh told Reuters via Zoom, speaking from an undisclosed location.
Yarmysh, who had worked with Navalny for more than a decade, said he represented the hope that Russia would be “a proper democratic country with fair elections, with an independent court, with a free press… a peaceful and rich country.”
“Of course everyone is devastated,” he said. “Alexey was a person who resembled all these ideas and who fought for them. So I am sure that his legacy will not die with him and people will return to these ideas.”
She said the team holds Putin responsible for what she called Navalny's murder.
He did not provide evidence of this, but pointed to an incident in 2020 when Navalny survived what Western doctors said was a nerve agent poisoning attempt on his life.
Putin denied at the time that the Russian state had tried to kill Navalny, saying he would have “finished the job” if he really wanted to eliminate him.
“We knew there was a risk and Alexey knew it too. And yesterday they murdered him as they planned to do three years ago,” Yarmysh said.
He called on Western leaders to “put as much pressure on (Putin) as possible,” seek justice in response to Navalny’s death and not negotiate with Putin.
Russian police detained more than 170 people across the country at monuments and rallies held Friday and Saturday in Navalny's honor, according to the protest monitoring group OVD-Info, which said 99 people were detained in St. Petersburg alone.
Strict anti-dissident laws prohibit protests in Russia, and authorities have hit pro-Navalny demonstrations particularly hard in the past.
World leaders have condemned the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin's fierce critic.
US President Joe Biden has said that “Putin is responsible for Navalny's death”, while European Council President Charles Michel has said that the European Union “considers the Russian regime solely responsible for this tragic death.”
