Where is Navalny’s body?

The world was told on Friday that  Alexei Navalny is dead. World leaders denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin for Navalny’s death.

Make no mistake, Putin is convinced he can get away with anything, including the murder of his political opponents, because he is not held accountable. Look no further than President Biden’s reaction to the news. After laying the blame on Putin for Navalny’s death, he was asked by a reporter about a comment he made three years ago. He warned Putin, he said at the time, that if anything happened to Navalny while he was in prison, Russia would suffer consequences. Biden said on Friday that the comment was made three years ago, meaning it was a long time ago. He went off on a tangent on more recent consequences Russia has experienced, like sanctions, but mostly he connected Putin’s alleged consequences to Putin’s war in Ukraine. It was an apples-and-oranges comparison. 

Biden is a very weak leader. He doesn’t project strength. Instead, he looks frail and feeble. He looks dazed and confused when he attempts to do a simple task, like leaving a stage after delivering a speech. Usually, someone has to guide him off the stage. It’s embarrassing. The rest of the world laughs at the United States. Putin is emboldened to act with impunity. 

While no one believes that Navalny, a 47-year-old man, just dropped dead after he took a walk. Navalny was imprisoned at the IK-3 penal colony known as “Polar Wolf” in Kharp, Russia. It’s one of Russia’s toughest prisons.

Officials allege that Navalny reported feeling unwell after a walk. He lost consciousness and died.

All of this is bad enough but now there are stories that his mother was denied the opportunity to see her son’s body.  And, worse still, no one seems to know where Navalny’s body is located. Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh posted on X (formerly Twitter) that Navalny’s mother and lawyer arrived at the morgue only to find it closed. They were told his body was not there.

Alexey’s lawyer and his mother have arrived at the Salekhard morgue. It’s closed, however, the colony has assured them it’s working and Navalny’s body is there. The lawyer called the phone number which was on the door. He was told he was the seventh caller today. Alexey’s body is… pic.twitter.com/CsPbONUBrn

— Кира Ярмыш (@Kira_Yarmysh) February 17, 2024

His mother and lawyer were told at the prison Saturday that Navalny died of “sudden death syndrome.” “We are convinced that Alexei was killed yesterday and the order to do this was given personally by Putin,” Yarmysh wrote.

Yarmysh said an employee of the IK-3 prison colony in the Yamalo-Nenets region of Russia where Navalny was incarcerated, told Navalny’s mother that the body had been transferred to Salekhard by state investigators carrying out an examination.

But when his lawyer and mother arrived at the morgue after flying to Salekhard, they found it closed and were told that the body wasn’t there, Yarmysh said.

“The colony cheated us,” top Navalny aide Ivan Zhdanov said on X.Navalny had spent much of his three years behind bars in isolation chambers and deliberately deprived of sleep.

Navalny was jailed in 2021. He was serving three prison sentences that amounted to more than 30 years on charges he and his supporters said were fabricated. He was jailed upon his return from Germany. He recovered in Germany after he was poisoned in Russia by a Soviet-era nerve agent, Novichok. Most of Navalny’s time in prison has been spent in isolation chambers and being deliberately deprived of sleep. 

Makeshift memorials have sprung up and rallies have been held in several countries. In Russia, Navalny supporters are being beaten and arrested as they come to leave flowers in his memory.

Spontaneous memorials in memory of Aleksey Navalny have appeared in many Russian cities. People bring flowers there.

At the same time, there are people who destroy them.
The police prevent the former and do not touch the latter.

RusNews correspondent Ksenia Starikova was… https://t.co/X8AxMQn2SY pic.twitter.com/41u5snJnrg

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) February 17, 2024

🔴 More than 100 people have been arrested by Russian authorities at spontaneous memorials for Alexei Navalny, the a rights group said this morning.

Follow the latest here ⬇️https://t.co/vBQomgvnyU pic.twitter.com/iVlozBgxh7

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) February 17, 2024

Some supporters are also remembering another Putin critic who was murdered.

In Moscow on Saturday, some of those who attended flower-laying ceremonies brought posters reading “Murderer,” according to Russian opposition channels covering the events. They said more than 100 people were detained at such ceremonies across Russia that day.

Some people in Moscow brought flowers for Navalny to a memorial dedicated to another opposition politician and vocal President Vladimir Putin critic, Boris Nemtsov, who was murdered on a bridge overlooking the Kremlin in February 2015. The group overseeing the memorial posted footage of two men in civilian clothing stuffing the flowers into a trash bag and hauling them away.

I’m sure Putin and his thugs will do all they can to keep Navalny’s mother out of the picture. It’s how he operates. Bodies of his political opponents mysteriously disappear or randomly fall out of windows. But, hey, groceries are cheap and the train station in Moscow is clean, amirite?