2024-02-16 15:53:27
BarcelonaYulia Navalnaya, the wife of the Russian opposition Aleksei Navalny, has been convinced that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his allies “will not go unpunished” if her husband’s death is confirmed. Russian prison services reported this Friday morning that Navalny, who had been serving a sentence in a penal colony in the Arctic since December, died suddenly while walking inside the prison.
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Speaking briefly from the Munich Security Conference, Navalnaya called on the international community to unite to fight Russia’s “terrible regime”. However, she has been skeptical of official information from Moscow. “I don’t know if we should believe the terrible news we receive only through official media, because we can’t believe Putin and Putin’s government for years. They lie constantly,” he said. “But if it is true, I want Putin and all his entourage, Putin’s friends and his government to know that they will not go unpunished for what they have done to our country, to my family, to my husband. And that day will come long soon,” he added.
Navalni’s allies have also expressed doubts about the news. In the morning, both the spokeswoman for the opposition, Kira Yarmysh, and who was his campaign manager, Leonid Volkov, said that they had not received any confirmation of the death, adding that his lawyer was on his way to Kharp. “The Russian authorities have published a confession saying that they killed Aleksei Navalny in prison. We have no way to confirm it or to prove that it is not true,” Volkov said on the X platform. He stressed that he doubts the official information: “We have no reason to believe the state propaganda”, he said, but added that, if true, it should be said that “Putin has killed Navalny” and not that “Navalni is dead” .
Ivan Zhdanov, director of the Anti-corruption Foundation, the organization created by Navalni, said that the family must be notified within a maximum period of 24 hours, and assured that this has not happened yet.
Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, has also been skeptical. “I don’t want to hear any condolences. I saw him in prison on the 12th at a meeting. He was alive, healthy and happy,” he said in a Facebook comment, according to the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
Navalny’s lawyer, Leonid Solovyov, told the same newspaper that he had visited him in prison on Wednesday and that “everything was normal”. A video of the independent Russian media has been circulated on social networks Sotavision of what is supposed to be the last public appearance of the opponent, this Thursday, in a judicial hearing in prison. “Aleksei was lively, healthy and cheerful,” according to reporters.
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