© Reuters. Individuals collect exterior the Russian consulate, following the dying of Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny, in Krakow, Poland, February 16, 2024. Jakub Porzycki/Agencja Wyborcza.pl by way of REUTERS
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By Man Faulconbridge
MOSCOW (Reuters) -The a whole lot of flowers and candles laid in Moscow on Friday to honour the reminiscence of Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most outstanding opposition chief, have been taken away in a single day in black baggage.
Russia’s jail service stated that Navalny, 47, fell unconscious and died on Friday after a stroll on the “Polar Wolf” Arctic penal colony.
A number of dozen roses and carnations remained within the softening snow on Saturday on the monument to the victims of Soviet repression, which sits within the shadow of the previous KGB headquarters on Lubyanka Sq. in central Moscow.
Vladimir Nikitin, 36, was alone laying a carnation on the Solovetsky Stone, which hails from the islands with the identical identify within the White Sea the place one of many first “Gulag” pressured labour camps was based in 1923 by the Bolsheviks.
Policemen regarded on.
When requested for an interview by Reuters, Nikitin requested to talk within the underpass which threads beneath Lubyanka Sq., citing the worry of detention.
“Navalny’s dying is horrible: hopes have been smashed,” Nikitin stated.
“Navalny was a really critical man, a courageous man and now he’s not with us. He spoke the reality – and that was very harmful as a result of some individuals did not like the reality.”
On the “Wall of Sorrow” memorial on the avenue named after Soviet physicist and dissent Andrei Sakharov, some Russians laid flowers beside footage of Navalny. One message learn: “We won’t overlook, nor we could forgive.”
“I got here as a result of I’ve grief,” stated Arkady, who declined to present his second identify. “He was a person who I revered. I had hopes that he was somebody who might do one thing sooner or later.”
The West, together with U.S. President Joe Biden, blamed President Vladimir Putin for the dying. Western leaders didn’t cite proof.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated the response of Western leaders to the dying was unacceptable and “completely rabid”.
Russian authorities considered Navalny and his supporters as extremists with hyperlinks to the CIA intelligence company who’re in search of to destabilise Russia. They’ve outlawed his motion, forcing lots of his followers to flee overseas.
The dying of Navalny, a former lawyer, robs the disparate Russian opposition of its most charismatic and brave chief as Putin prepares for an election that can preserve the previous KGB spy in energy till at the very least 2030.
DEATH IN PRISON
The OVD-Information protest-monitoring group stated greater than 110 individuals had been arrested throughout Russia at conferences and memorials to Navalny, together with 64 in Russia’s former imperial capital, St Petersburg.
Navalny rose to prominence greater than a decade in the past by documenting and poking enjoyable at what he stated was the huge corruption and opulence of the “crooks and thieves” operating Putin’s Russia.
On the time of his dying he was serving jail sentences totalling greater than 30 years on a number of prices of extremism and fraud, which he denied and stated have been politically motivated.
His mom, Lyudmila, was travelling to the IK-3 penal colony within the Yamal-Nenets area, about 1,900 km (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow, the place he died, Russian media reported.
Navalny’s supporters – together with within the West – forged him as a Russian model of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, who would sooner or later stroll free to steer the nation. His spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, stated there was “virtually no hope” that he was alive.
His spouse, Yulia, instructed the Munich Safety Convention that Putin bore accountability for her husband’s dying and that the world ought to come collectively to defeat the “horrific regime” in Moscow and reclaim Russia.
Some Russians, although, dismissed such a view as a traditional case of wishful considering, and pointed to an opinion ballot exhibiting that almost all Russians disapproved of him and that Putin was vastly extra in style.
“Navalny’s dying could be very useful to Putin’s opponents,” stated Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser.
“They’ll use it to undermine the legitimacy of the presidential election in Russia, use it to not recognise Putin because the reputable president. They’re attempting to current Putin not because the president of a hostile nation, however as a felony with whom nobody ought to should deal.”
Information of Navalny’s dying got here simply hours earlier than Ukraine withdrew from the south of the town of Avdiivka, paving the way in which for Russia’s greatest advance within the nation since Could 2023.
WEST ‘NOT OUR FRIEND’
At “Patriki”, or Patriarch’s Ponds, the centre of Moscow nightlife, many younger Russians revelled away Friday evening simply hours after information of Navalny’s dying. There was no signal of disappointment.
“It’s unhappy in fact when anyone dies,” Olga Kazakova, a Russian, instructed Reuters in central Moscow on Saturday.
“However you within the West paint him as somebody he was not. The West just isn’t our pal – you’re preventing towards us in Ukraine.”
On the bridge beside the Kremlin the place opposition chief Boris Nemtsov was shot lifeless on Feb. 27, 2015, flowers have been additionally eliminated in a single day. A makeshift vase of white and purple carnations remained with a small printed piece of paper.
“Boris Nemtsov was shot within the again and murdered right here,” the observe stated.
Policemen regarded on as kids made their approach via the snow piled up within the shadow of Saint Basil’s Cathedral.