'Putin killed my husband,' alleges Alexei Navalny's wife

“Three days ago, Vladimir Putin killed my husband, Alexei Navalny,” Navalnaya said in a video address on Monday (February 19).

While the Russian government is tight-lipped on the cause behind Navalny’s death with the Investigative Committee, the country’s top criminal investigation agency, maintaining that an official probe into it is underway, his team has maintained that he has been murdered.

“Alexei died in a prison colony after three years of torment and torture,” Navalnaya said in the video address.

Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service reported that Navalny felt sick after a walk on Friday (February 16) and became unconscious at the penal colony in the town of Kharp, in the Yamalo-Nenets region about 1,900 km (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow. An ambulance arrived, but he couldn't be revived, the service said, adding that the cause of death is still “being established”.

Navalnaya, who had been fighting to get justice for her incarcerated husband, said she will continue his work even after his death.

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

“We need to seize every opportunity to fight against war, against corruption, against injustice, to fight for fair elections and the freedom of speech, to fight to take back our country,” she said.

Vowing to find her husband’s ‘murderers’, Navalnaya said she knows why he was killed.

“We know exactly why Putin killed Alexei three days ago…We will definitely find out exactly who carried out this crime and how it was carried out. We will name names and show faces,” she said.

On Sunday, Navalnaya posted a picture of the couple on Instagram in her first social media post since her husband's death, with the caption “I love you”.

Navalny’s mother denied access to body

Earlier on Monday, Navalny’s mother was denied access to a morgue where his body was believed to be kept after his death.

Navalny's allies to have accused authorities of trying to hide evidence of his death.

Navalny's spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said that the Investigative Committee informed Lyudmila Navalnaya that the cause of her son's death remained unknown and that the official probe had been extended. “They lie, buy time for themselves and do not even hide it,” Yarmysh posted on X.

Several world leaders have also blamed Putin and his government for Navalny's death on Friday at age 47. Navalny's team said he was “murdered”, and charged that officials' refusal to hand over his body was part of a cover-up.

Boorish allegations: Kremlin spokesperson

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov slammed what he described as “boorish” and “inadmissible” statements by Western leaders who held Putin responsible for Navalny's death.

“Those statements can't do any harm to the head of our state, but they certainly aren't becoming for those who make them,” Peskov said in a call with reporters.

Yarmysh said that Navalny's 69-year-old mother and his lawyers were not allowed into the morgue in Salekhard on Monday morning. The staff didn't answer when they asked if the body was there, Yarmysh said.

Asked when Navalny's body could be handed over to his family, Peskov responded that the Kremlin was not involved in those proceedings, adding that the official probe was continuing in line with the law.

Navalny's ally Ivan Zhdanov denounced the Russian authorities as “lackeys and liars”. “It's clear what they are doing now — covering up the traces of their crime,” he wrote Monday.

Navalny's death has deprived the Russian opposition of its most well-known and inspiring politician less than a month before an election that is all but certain to give Putin another six years in power. It dealt a devastating blow to many Russians, who had seen Navalny as a hope for political change following his unrelenting criticism of the Kremlin.

Protests gain momentum

Nearly 300 people have been detained by police in Russia as they streamed to ad-hoc memorials and monuments to victims of political repression with flowers and candles to pay tribute to Navalny, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political arrests. The US and British ambassadors also mourned Navalny's death at a memorial in Moscow.

Authorities cordoned off some of the memorials across the country and were removing flowers at night, but they kept appearing.

Over 50,000 people have submitted requests to the Russian government asking for Navalny's remains to be handed over to his relatives, OVD-Info said.

Navalny had been jailed since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin. He received three prison terms since his arrest, on a number of charges he has rejected as politically motivated.

After the last verdict that handed him a 19-year term, Navalny said he understood he was “serving a life sentence, which is measured by the length of my life or the length of life of this regime”.

(With inputs from agencies)