Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s funeral service and burial will take place in Moscow on Friday, his spokeswoman said after unsuccessful attempts to find a place where his supporters could say goodbye, on Wednesday, the 28th of February, reports the British broadcaster BBC.
His spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said on X that a funeral service for Navalny would be held on Friday, the 1st of March, at 14:00 Moscow time at the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God in the Maryino district of Moscow. She urged people to arrive early.
Afterwards, at 16:00, Navalny will be buried in the Borisovskoye cemetery,
Yarmysh wrote.
On Tuesday, Yarmysh said her team had difficulties finding a venue for the ceremony – some funeral homes said they were fully booked, while others refused when they found out who the ceremony was for.
“In one place we were told that funeral agencies were forbidden to work with us,” Yarmish wrote on social media.
Navalny’s team had originally planned a funeral for the 29th of February, but problems arose because there was no one to dig the grave that day, Ivan Zhdanov, director of the Navalny Anti-Corruption Foundation has written on X.
Zhdanov suggested that it could be linked to Putin’s annual address to the Federal Assembly on the same day. He indirectly suggested that the Kremlin predicted that no one would be interested in Putin’s address on the day of Navalny’s funeral.
He also urged people to arrive early so that everyone had the chance to say goodbye to Alexei.
Yulia Navalny, Aleksei Navalny’s wife, speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, described her husband as
an “inventor” who had a constant flow of new ideas, especially in the political area.
Since his death on the 16th of February, little information has been revealed about the cause of his death and around 400 people in Russia have been arrested at memorial gatherings for Navalny. The funeral on Friday is expected to be marked by an increased police presence and possibly similar repression.
Earlier in the week, an ally of Navalny claimed that Navalny was killed “on the eve” of the prisoner swap, but that at the last minute President Putin allegedly reversed his decision, while the Kremlin has said it was not aware of such a deal.
The Russian authorities returned Navalny’s body to his mother, Lyudmila, only eight days after his death.
Also read: BNN INTERVIEW | Aleksejs Grigorjevs: Navalny’s murder proves – Russia is completely a fascist country
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