© Reuters. Folks collect on the Solovetsky Stone monument to the victims of political repressions to honour the reminiscence of Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny, in Saint Petersburg, Russia February 17, 2024. REUTERS/Stringer
ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) -Greater than 400 individuals have been detained at occasions throughout 32 Russian cities because the loss of life of Alexei Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most formidable opponent, in response to rights group OVD-Data, as Russians continued to collect and lay flowers.
It has been the biggest wave of arrests at political occasions in Russia since Sept. 2022, when greater than 1,300 had been arrested at demonstrations towards a “partial mobilisation” of reservists for Putin’s navy marketing campaign in Ukraine.
Navalny, a 47-year-old former lawyer, fell unconscious and died on Friday after a stroll on the “Polar Wolf” Arctic penal colony the place he was serving a three-decade sentence, the jail service stated.
OVD-Data, which experiences on freedom of meeting in Russia, stated the biggest numbers of arrests occurred in St Petersburg and Moscow, the place Navalny’s help had historically been sturdy. As of 2000 GMT on Saturday, greater than 200 individuals had been detained in St. Petersburg.
However there was no point out of the occasions on Russian state information businesses, that are underneath full Kremlin management. There was additionally no tales in regards to the tons of of individuals throughout Russia who’ve continued to defy authorities to put flowers at impromptu Navalny memorials.
The loss of life of Navalny robs the disparate Russian opposition of its most outstanding chief as Putin prepares for the March presidential election – a rubber-stamp vote set to maintain the previous KGB spy in energy till not less than 2030.
Footage filmed by Reuters on Saturday in St Petersburg confirmed dozens gathering by a monument to the victims of repression. Protesters laid flowers and candles, whereas some sang hymns and others hugged one another, shedding tears.
“I felt very sorry for him and for our nation,” stated an 83-year-old girl attending the vigil who declined to offer her title. “I am scared.”
A Reuters reporter on the scene stated some 30 individuals had been arrested shortly after the singing completed.
FLOWERS KEEP APPEARING
OVD-Data additionally reported particular person arrests in smaller cities throughout Russia, from the border metropolis of Belgorod, the place seven had been killed in a Ukrainian missile strike on Thursday, to Vorkuta, an Arctic mining outpost as soon as a centre of the Stalin-era gulag labour camps.
The web information outlet SOTA reported that in Luhansk, an Ukrainian territory now underneath Russian management, residents laid flowers in Navalny’s honour at a monument commemorating the victims of the Soviet Union chief Joseph Stalin.
In one other metropolis, flowers had been laid at a monument to the heroes of the early twentieth century Russian Revolution.
“Regardless of the authorities’ makes an attempt to take away the flowers, they maintain showing,” SOTA reported.
Footage filmed by Reuters in Moscow confirmed regulation enforcement bundling individuals to the bottom within the snow, near a spot the place mourners had left flowers and messages in help of the useless opposition chief.
“In every police division there could also be extra detainees than within the revealed lists,” OVD-Data stated. “We publish solely the names of these individuals about whom now we have dependable data and whose names we will publish.”
Reuters couldn’t instantly confirm the rely. Police declined to remark.