Daily TribuneYulia Navalnaya blames Kremlin for her husband’s death
The wife of Russia’s slain opposition figurehead Alexei Navalny has vowed to continue her husband’s fight for freedom.
“I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny. I will continue to fight for the freedom of our country,” Yulia Navalnaya said on her YouTube channel on Monday. “And I call on you to stand by me.”
Navalnaya’s address came shortly before she met European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, where she had been invited after the death of her husband triggered Western outrage.
She blamed the Kremlin for her husband’s death.
“Vladimir Putin killed my husband Alexei Navalny,” Navalnaya said on YouTube, adding he died “after three years of torment and torture.”
“Putin took from me the most valuable thing that I had, the closest and most loved person. But Putin also took Navalny from you,” the 47-year-old said.
The Kremlin said it had no details about Navalny’s death, while his mother Lyudmila was denied access to his body for a third day.
Coverup
Russia’s prison service said on Friday that Navalny had died “after a walk” in the IK-3 prison colony in the Arctic Yamal region.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov refused to say how Putin — who has not commented on the death — reacted to his main opponent dying.
He also said the Kremlin had no results from an investigation into the death.
“At the moment, the results of the investigation have not been released, they are unknown,” Peskov said.
He decried Western statements blaming the Kremlin for Navalny’s end as “absolutely unacceptable.”
Navalny’s team however accused Russian authorities of trying to cover up “murder.”
“Investigators told Alexei’s mother and lawyers that they are not handing over the body and in the next 14 days they will conduct a chemical analysis, an investigation,” Navalny spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said in a YouTube broadcast.
“I’ll say it again: Navalny’s body is being hidden to hide the traces of the murder. This 14-day ‘chemical analysis’ is an outright lie and mockery,” she said in a subsequent statement on social media site X.
WITH AFP
