Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny walks away from his picture after lighting a candle at the end of a service in St. Mary’s Church on the occasion of his birthday, in Berlin, June 4, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

A woman registers to vote in Russia’s presidential election in the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk on far eastern Sakhalin Island on March 17, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Kremlin critics called for massive protests at Russian polling stations on Sunday for the final day of a presidential election that is guaranteed to cement Vladimir Putin’s hardline rule.

The three-day vote has already been marred by a surge in fatal Ukrainian bombardments and a series of incursions into Russian territory by pro-Ukrainian sabotage groups.

There have also been acts of protest in the first days of polling, with a spate of arrests of Russians accused of pouring dye into ballot boxes or arson attacks.

Before his death in an Arctic prison last month, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who galvanised mass anti-Putin rallies, urged Russians to protest on Sunday.

His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has reiterated his call in the run-up to the election and said protesters should show up in large numbers at the same time to overwhelm polling stations.

She called for protestors to spoil ballots by writing “Navalny” on them, or vote for candidates other than Putin.

Any public dissent in Russia has been harshly punished since the start of Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 and there have been repeated warnings from the authorities against election protests.

Russian opposition has called on people to head to the polls at 12 p.m. (0900 GMT), in what they hope will be a legal a show of strength against Putin.

A Moscow resident in his twenties told AFP he would take part in the protest at noon in the capital, “just to see young supportive faces around… feel some support around me, and see the light in this dark tunnel.”

The man, who declined to give his name for security reasons, said he hoped the demonstration would show the authorities “that there are people in this country against the conflict… against the regime.”

‘Difficult period’

The 71-year-old Putin, a former KGB agent, has been in power since the last day of 1999 and is set to extend his grip over the country until at least 2030.

If he completes another Kremlin term, he would have stayed in power longer than any Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the 18th century.

He is running without any real opponents, having barred two candidates who opposed the conflict in Ukraine.

The Kremlin has cast the election as an opportunity for Russians to show they are behind the assault on Ukraine, where voting is also being staged in Russian-held areas.

In a pre-election address on Thursday, Putin said Russia was going through a “difficult period”.

“We need to continue to be united and self-confident,” he said, describing the election as a way for Russians to demonstrate their “patriotic feelings”.

The voting will wrap up in Kaliningrad, Russia’s westernmost time zone, at 1800 GMT and an exit poll is expected to be announced shortly after that.

A concert on Red Square is being staged on Monday to mark 10 years since Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula – an event that is also expected to serve as a victory celebration for Putin.

‘No validity’

Ukraine has repeatedly denounced the elections as illegitimate and a “farce”, and its foreign ministry has urged Western allies not to recognise the result.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, as well as more than 50 member states, have slammed Moscow for holding the vote in parts of Ukraine, with Guterres saying that the “attempted illegal annexation” of those regions has “no validity” under international law.

Ahead of the election, Russian state media have played up recent gains on the front and portrayed the conflict as a fight for survival against attacks from the West.

Moscow has sought to press its advantage on the front line as divisions over Western military support for Ukraine have led to ammunition shortages, although Kyiv says it has managed to stop the Russian advance for now.

In Ukraine, a Russian missile strike on the Black Sea port city of Odesa on Friday killed 21 people including rescue workers responding to an initial hit — an attack President Volodymyr Zelensky described as “vile”.

On the Russian side, the army has reported repeated attempts by Ukrainian sabotage groups to cross into Russia and the local governor in Belgorod region on Saturday decreed that shopping malls and schools would be shut for two days in the main city Belgorod and the surrounding district following recent strikes.

Russian police detain a man trying to lay flowers at a monument in St. Petersburg to honour Alexei Navalny on Feb. 17, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

When charismatic opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was gunned down on a bridge near the Kremlin in February 2015, more than 50,000 Muscovites expressed their shock and outrage the next day . Police stood aside as they rallied and chanted anti-government slogans.

Nine years later, stunned and angry Russians streamed into the streets on the night of February 16, when they heard that popular opposition politician Alexei Navalny had died in prison. But this time, those laying flowers at impromptu memorials in major cities were met by riot police, who arrested and dragged hundreds of them away.

In those intervening years, President Vladimir Putin’s Russia evolved from a country that tolerated some dissent to one that ruthlessly suppresses it. Arrests, trials and long prison terms — once rare — are commonplace, especially after Moscow invaded Ukraine.

Wider targets

Alongside its political opponents, the Kremlin now also targets rights groups, independent media and other members of civil-society organisations, LGBTQ+ activists and certain religious affiliations.

“Russia is no longer an authoritarian state — it is a totalitarian state,” said Oleg Orlov, co-chair of Memorial, the Russian human rights group that tracks political prisoners. “All these repressions are aimed at suppressing any independent expression about Russia’s political system, about the actions of the authorities, or any independent civil activists.”

A month after making that comment, the 70-year-old Orlov became one of his group’s own statistics: He was handcuffed and hauled out of a courtroom after being convicted of criticising the military over Ukraine and sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Memorial estimates nearly 680 political prisoners in Russia. Another group, OVD-Info, said in November that 1,141 people are behind bars on politically motivated charges, with over 400 others receiving other punishment and nearly 300 more under investigation.

There was a time after the collapse of the Soviet Union when it seemed Russia had turned a page and widespread repression was a thing of the past, said Mr. Orlov, a human rights advocate since the 1980s.

While there were isolated cases in the 1990s under President Boris Yeltsin, Mr. Orlov said major crackdowns began slowly after Mr. Putin came to power in 2000.

When Mr. Putin regained the presidency in 2012 after evading term limits by serving four years as Prime Minister, he was greeted by mass protests. He saw these as Western-inspired and wanted to nip them in the bud, said Tatiana Stanovaya of Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

Many were arrested, and over a dozen received up to four years in prison after those protests. But mostly, Ms. Stanovaya said, authorities were “creating conditions in which the opposition could not thrive,” rather than dismantling it.

Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 from Ukraine created a surge of patriotism and boosted Mr. Putin’s popularity, emboldening the Kremlin. Authorities restricted foreign-funded non-governmental organisations and rights groups, outlawing some as “undesirable,” and targeted online critics with prosecutions, fines and occasionally jail.

With the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia enacted repressive new laws that stifled any anti-war protests and criticism of the military. The system of oppression is designed “to keep people in fear,” said Nikolay Petrov, visiting researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

Workers carry the coffin and a portrait of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny out of the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God Soothe My Sorrows, in Moscow, Russia, Friday, March 1, 2024. Relatives and supporters of Alexei Navalny are bidding farewell to the opposition leader at a funeral in southeastern Moscow, following a battle with authorities over the release of his body after his still-unexplained death in an Arctic penal colony.
| Photo Credit: AP

Under a heavy police presence, thousands of people bade farewell on Friday to Alexei Navalny at his funeral in Moscow after his still-unexplained death two weeks ago in an Arctic penal colony.

The service followed a battle with authorities over the release of the body of President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic. His supporters said several churches in Moscow refused to hold the funeral for the man who crusaded against official corruption and organised big protests. Many Western leaders blamed the death on the Russian leader, an accusation the Kremlin angrily rejected.

Mr. Navalny’s team eventually got permission from the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God Soothe My Sorrows, which was encircled by crowd-control barriers on Friday.

As his coffin was removed from the hearse and taken inside the church, the crowd waiting outside broke into respectful applause and then chanted: “Navalny! Navalny!” Some also shouted, “You weren’t afraid, neither are we!” and later “No to war!”

Western diplomats, including U.S. Ambassador Lynn Tracy, were among those who attended, along with presidential hopefuls Boris Nadezhdin and Yekaterina Duntsova. Both wanted to run against Mr. Putin in the upcoming presidential elections and opposed his war in Ukraine; neither was allowed on the ballot.

A photo from inside the church showed an open casket with Mr. Navalny’s body covered with red and white flowers, and his mother sitting beside it holding a candle.

Mr. Navalny’s father was also present, but it was not clear who else in his family attended. His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, just two days ago addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg in France; his daughter is a student at the Stanford University, and the whereabouts of his son are unknown.

The politician’s closest associates have left Russia under pressure and watched the funeral, which was streamed live on his YouTube channel, from abroad.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged those gathering in Moscow and other places not to break the law, saying any “unauthorised (mass) gatherings” are violations.

“Those people who follow what is happening, it is of course obvious to them that this man is a hero of our country, whom we will not forget,” said Nadezhda Ivanova, a Kaliningrad resident who was outside the church with other supporters. “What was done to him is incredibly difficult to accept and get through it.”

After the short funeral, a crowd of thousands marched from the church to the nearby Borisovskoye Cemetery, where the police were also out in force for the burial.

With the casket open, Mr. Navalny’s parents and others stroked and kissed his body. Meanwhile, a large crowd of supporters gathered at the gates of the cemetery, chanting: “Let us in to say say goodbye!”

The coffin was then lowered into the ground, allies said.

Mr. Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, spent eight days trying to get authorities to release the body following his February 16 death at Penal Colony No. 3 in the town of Kharp, in the Yamalo-Nenets region about 1,900 km northeast of Moscow.

Even on Friday itself, the morgue where the body was being held delayed its release, according to Ivan Zhdanov, Mr. Navalny’s close ally and director of his Anti-Corruption Foundation.

Authorities originally said they could not turn over the body because they needed to conduct post-mortem tests. Ms. Navalnaya made a video appeal to Mr. Putin to release it so she could bury her son with dignity.

At least one funeral director said he had been “forbidden” to work with Navalny’s supporters, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said on social media. They also struggled to find a hearse.

“Unknown people are calling up people and threatening them not to take Mr. Alexei’s body anywhere,” Ms. Yarmysh said Thursday.

Russian authorities still have not announced the cause of death for Mr. Navalny, who was 47.

Mr. Navalny had been jailed since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow to face certain arrest after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin.

His Foundation for Fighting Corruption and his regional offices were designated as “extremist organisations” by the Russian government that same year.

His widow accused Mr. Putin and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin of trying to block a public funeral.

“We don’t want any special treatment — just to give people the opportunity to say farewell to Alexei in a normal way,” Yulia Navalnaya wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. In a speech to European lawmakers on Wednesday, she also expressed fears that police might interfere with the gathering or would “arrest those who have come to say goodbye to my husband.”

Moscow authorities refused permission for a separate memorial event for Mr. Navalny and slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov on Friday, citing COVID-19 restrictions, according to politician Yekaterina Duntsova said. Nemtsov, a 55-year-old former deputy Prime Minister, was shot to death as he walked on a bridge adjacent to the Kremlin on the night of February 27, 2015.

Ms. Yarmysh also urged Navalny’s supporters around the world to lay flowers in his honor on Friday.

“Everyone who knew Alexei says what a cheerful, courageous and honest person he was,” Ms. Yarmysh said Thursday. “But the greater truth is that even if you never met Alexei, you knew what he was like, too. You shared his investigations, you went to rallies with him, you read his posts from prison. His example showed many people what to do when even when things were scary and difficult.”

General view of the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God, where service for Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died in a prison camp, is expected to be held in Moscow, Russia on February 29, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The funeral of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is scheduled to be held in Moscow on Friday, with mourners braving the risk of arrest to come and pay their respects.

The ceremony will take place two weeks after Navalny died in an Arctic prison, amid pressures denounced by his team who accuse Russian President Vladimir Putin of murdering his top critic.

Mr. Putin, who famously never said Navalny’s name in public, has not commented on the death, which sparked outrage among Western leaders and the Russian opposition.

The religious service will be held at the Mother of God Quench My Sorrows church in Maryino at 2 p.m. (1100 GMT) on the outskirts of Moscow.

In line with Orthodox practices, the body of Navalny — who had embraced Christianity — will be displayed in an open casket.

Two hours later, the burial is set to take place at the Borisovo cemetery, a short walk from the banks of the river Moskva.

Details of the funeral and how many mourners will be allowed to attend are still unclear.

Authorities have not commented on how they will handle the event, which could turn into an embarrassing show of support for Navalny.

Around a dozen police officers already patrolled the cemetery on the eve of the burial, which supporters fear may be disturbed by the Kremlin.

Hopes for peaceful ceremony

They have reasons for concern: 400 mourners have been detained at memorials for Navalny since his death, rights organisation OVD-Info said.

The dissident’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, feared the funeral could be disrupted by further arrests.

“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,” Ms. Navalnaya told the European Parliament.

She has directly blamed Putin for his death.

Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has criticised statements by Navalny’s wife and Western leaders blaming the Russian leader for the death as “vulgar”.

Navalny had shot to prominence through his anti-corruption campaigning, exposing what he said was rampant graft at the top of Putin’s administration.

He was arrested in January 2021 when he returned to Russia after being treated in Germany for a poisoning attack.

“Alexei was tortured for three years,” Navalnaya told lawmakers in Brussels.

“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,” she said.

‘Chance to say goodbye’

His body was held for eight days, which his team believed to be a bid to cover up responsibility for his death.

Navalny’s family and his team have also accused authorities of trying to prevent him from having a dignified public burial due to fears it could turn into a flashpoint for dissent.

The team alleged local investigators had threatened to bury him on the prison grounds if his mother did not agree to a “secret” funeral.

Once the body was released, allies struggled to find a funeral place that would agree to hold the ceremony.

And on Thursday they said hearse drivers were refusing to take the body from the morgue.

“What a disgrace. Now the hearse drivers refuse to take Alexei from the morgue,” said Ivan Zhdanov, an exiled ally who managed Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.

Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said funeral directors had received threatening calls from “unknown people” warning them not to transport Navalny’s body anywhere.

And a civil ceremony allowing the general public to pay their respects to the body — common in Russia — has not been allowed.

Navalnaya said the family “did not want a special treatment — just to give people the chance to say goodbye”.

She has vowed to continue his life’s work.

“The most important thing we can do for Alexei and for ourselves is to continue to fight more desperately, more fiercely than before,” she said.

Moscow:

Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny will be buried in Moscow later on Friday amid tight security and fears of a police crackdown two weeks after he suddenly died at the age of 47 in an Arctic penal colony.

Navalny’s allies – who have promised to livestream the day’s events online – have accused President Vladimir Putin of having him murdered because the Russian leader could allegedly not tolerate the thought of Navalny being freed in a potential prisoner swap.

They have not published proof to back up that accusation, but have promised to set out how he was murdered and by whom.

The Kremlin has denied state involvement in his death and has said it is unaware of any agreement to free Navalny. His death certificate – according to allies – said he died of natural causes.

Navalny, a former lawyer, mounted the most determined political challenge against Putin since the Russian leader came to power at the end of 1999, organising street protests and publishing high-profile investigations into the alleged corruption of some in the ruling elite.

But a series of criminal charges for fraud and extremism – which Navalny said were politically-motivated – saw him handed jail sentences of over 30 years and most of his supporters have either fled the country or are in jail.

Navalny decided to return to Russia from Germany in 2021 after being treated for what Western doctors said was poisoning with a nerve agent only to be immediately taken into custody.

Putin, who controls all the levers of state and is expected to be comfortably re-elected for another six-year term in two weeks, has yet to comment on Navalny’s death and has for years avoided mentioning him by name.

Though Navalny is well known in the West, state TV inside Russia did not mention him for years either and when it did it was brief and in a negative light.

A religious service for Navalny is due to be held at 1400 local time in the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God in the Moscow district of Maryino where Navalny used to live.

He is then scheduled to be buried at the Borisovskoye cemetery, around 2.5 km (1.5 miles) away on the other side of the Moskva River two hours later.

Navalny’s allies, who are outside Russia and have been designated as U.S.-backed extremists by the authorities, have called on people who want to honour his memory but cannot attend his funeral service to instead go to certain landmarks in their own towns on Friday evening at 7 p.m. local time.

The Kremlin has dismissed statements by his allies as provocative and warned that the police will uphold the law.

Judging from previous gatherings of Navalny supporters, a heavy police presence is likely and the authorities will break up anything they deem to resemble a political demonstration under protest laws.

Navalny’s wife Yulia, with whom he had two children, has said she is unsure whether the funeral itself will pass off peacefully or whether police will arrest attendees. She is outside Russia.

Navalny’s mother Lyudmila, 69, is expected to attend his funeral. It is unclear who else will be allowed into the church for the service.

Navalny was a Christian who condemned Putin’s decision to send tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine as a crazy enterprise built on lies. But the church that will host his funeral has donated to the Russian army and enthusiastically advertised its backing for the war.

In the run-up to his funeral, his allies accused the authorities of blocking their plans to hold a bigger civil memorial service and said unknown individuals had even managed to thwart their attempts to hire a hearse to transport him to his own funeral.

The Kremlin has said it has nothing to do with Navalny’s funeral arrangements.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A man lays flowers to pay tribute to Alexei Navalny at the monument, a large boulder from the Solovetsky islands, where the first camp of the Gulag political prison system was established, near the historical Federal Security Service (FSB, Soviet KGB successor) building in Moscow, Russia, on February 26, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

The funeral of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died earlier this month in a remote Arctic penal colony, will take place on March 1 in Moscow after several locations declined to host the service, his spokesperson said.

His funeral will be held at a church in Moscow’s southeast Maryino district on March 1 afternoon, Kira Yarmysh said February 27. The burial is to be at a nearby cemetery.

Navalny died in mid-February in one of Russia’s harshest penal facilities. Russian authorities said the cause of his death at age 47 is still unknown, and the results of any investigation are likely to be questioned abroad. Many Western leaders have already said they hold Russian President Vladimir Putin responsible for his death.

Ms. Yarmysh spoke of the difficulties his team encountered in trying to find a site for a “farewell event” for Navalny.

Also Read | Navalny was close to being freed in a prisoner swap, claims ally

Writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, she said most venues said they were fully booked, with some “refusing when we mention the surname ‘Navalny,” and one disclosing that “funeral agencies were forbidden to work with us.”

Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said the funeral was initially planned for February 29 — the day of Putin’s annual address to Russia’s Federal Assembly — but no venue would agree to hold it then.

“The real reason is clear. The Kremlin understands that nobody will need Putin and his message on the day we say farewell to Alexei,” Mr. Zhdanov wrote on Telegram.

A woman holds candles and a portrait of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died unexpectedly in prison. Reuters
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny was close to being freed in a prisoner swap at the time of his death, Maria Pevchikh, a Navalny ally, said on February 26, repeating her allegation that President Vladimir Putin had him killed.

Speaking on YouTube, Ms. Pevchikh said talks about exchanging Navalny and two unnamed U.S. nationals for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian FSB security service hit man in jail in Germany, were in their final stages at the time of his death.

Navalny (47) died at an Arctic penal colony on February 16. The Kremlin has denied Russia had any involvement in his death. Navalny’s death certificate stated that he died of natural causes, according to his supporters.

Also read | Who are other Russian dissidents besides the late Alexei Navalny?

Ms. Pevchikh did not name the two U.S. nationals in contention to be swapped along with Navalny. But the United States has said it is trying to return Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Paul Whelan, a former U.S. marine.

“Alexei Navalny could be sitting in this seat right now, right today. That’s not a figure of speech, it could and should have happened,” said Ms. Pevchikh.

“Navalny should have been out in the next few days because we got a decision about his exchange. In early February, Putin was offered to exchange the killer, FSB officer Vadim Krasikov, who’s serving time for a murder in Berlin, for two American citizens and Alexei Navalny.”

Ms. Pevchikh said she had confirmation that negotiations for the swap were in their final stages on the evening of Feb. 15.

Navalny, she alleged, had been killed a day later because Mr. Putin could not tolerate the thought of him being free.

Ms. Pevchikh said Navalny’s allies had been working since the start of the Ukraine war on a plan to get him out of Russia as part of a prisoner exchange involving “Russian spies in exchange for political prisoners”.

She said they had made desperate efforts and tried to find intermediaries, even approaching the late Henry Kissinger, but said Western governments had failed to show the necessary political will.

“Officials, American and German, nodded their heads in understanding. They recounted how important it was to help Navalny and political prisoners, they shook hands, made promises and did nothing.”

Rome:

Leaders of the G7 nations on Saturday called on Russia to “fully clarify” how Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny came to die in prison last week.

Their statement came hours after a spokesperson for Navalny’s team said the Russian authorities had finally handed over his body to his mother following his death in an Arctic prison colony.

“We call on the Russian government to fully clarify the circumstances around his death,” said the statement.

“We also pay tribute to the extraordinary courage of Alexei Navalny and stand with his wife, children, and loved ones,” it added.

“He sacrificed his life fighting against the Kremlin’s corruption and for free and fair elections in Russia.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Yulia Navalnaya, wife of dead Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Alexei Navalny’s widow said Russian President Vladimir Putin had personally ordered that his arch critic’s body should not be handed over to his family after his death in an Arctic jail nine days ago.

Navalny’s mother has said authorities in the Arctic town of Salekhard are threatening to bury him on the prison grounds if she did not agree to a “secret” funeral.

“You tortured him alive, now you torture him while he is dead,” Yulia Navalnaya, who has vowed to continue her husband’s work, said in a new video.

Also Read: Alexei Navalny | The man who stood up to Putin

“I completely understand that this has not been curated by some investigator in Salekhard. Putin is directing it all,” she said.

“It’s Putin saying ‘put pressure on the mother, break her, tell her the body of her son is rotting’,” she said.

She said Navalny’s mother, who travelled to the remote prison colony where he died, is being “tormented” by authorities.

“This is the same Putin that likes to show that he is a practising Christian,” she said.

Mr. Putin has for decades portrayed himself as a devoted Orthodox Christian and has in recent years focused on promoting what he calls “traditional values.”

“We always knew that Putin’s faith is fake, but now we can see it like never before,” Ms. Navalnaya said.

Also Read: Reeling from Navalny’s death, Russian opposition vows to fight on

She also denounced Mr. Putin’s decision to launch the Ukraine campaign two years ago.

“You will answer for all of this.. And for this (Navalny’s death) and for the war that you unleashed two years ago, also hiding behind Christian values.

“You are just killing. You are just killing sleeping people at night with missiles blessed by the church,” she said.