Widow Kremlin Critic Navalny Fears Arrests During Friday’s Funeral In Moscow
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
STRASBOURG/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – The emotional widow of Russia’s most prominent Kremlin critic, Alexei Navalny, said Thursday that she fears arrests when her late husband’s human remains will be laid to rest at a funeral on Friday in Moscow, the capital.
Yulia Navalnaya told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, that she spent the past 12 days since her husband died in an Arctic penal colony to get his body back from Russian authorities.
She hopes those attending the ceremony in an Orthodox church in a residential area of southeastern Moscow and the burial of Navalny in a local cemetery will be able to mourn Russia’s opposition leader peacefully.
However, “I’m not sure yet whether it will be peaceful or whether police will arrest those who have come to say goodbye to my husband,” she told the European legislators.
Authorities had been reluctant to allow the funeral amid concerns it would be turned into a protest rally by the politician’s family, represented by Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila.
Navalnaya, dressed in black and white, called for Putin to be held responsible for her husband’s death, the crimes of his regime, and his “brutal and sneaky” war in Ukraine.
ALEXEI ORDERS
“On his orders, Alexei was tortured for three years, he was starved in a tiny stone cell cut off from the outside world and denied visits, phone calls, and then even letters — and then they killed him; even after that, they abused his body and abused his mother,” Navalnaya said.
Navalnaya made clear she would continue her husband’s work and condemned Russia’s “brutal and sneaky” war in Ukraine.
However, she stressed that the West’s strategy for taking on Russia has not worked. “You can’t hurt [Russian President Vladimir] Putin with another resolution or another set of sanctions that is no different from the previous ones,” she warned.
Her words came after French President Emmanuel Macron suggested sending ground forces to Ukraine, which has been struggling to halt Russia’s invading military.
Yet the NATO military alliance fears World War Three if it directly enters Europe’s bloodiest conflict in decades, though Worthy News learned that special forces have been in the country.
Navalny will be remembered as the most high-profile critic of Vladimir Putin, for which he ultimately paid with his life, his wife and other supporters say. World leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, have also blamed the Russian president for his death.
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