Navalny’s demise leaves despair and apathy in Moscow By Reuters

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 luggage.

Russia’s jail service mentioned that Navalny, 47, fell unconscious and died on Friday after a stroll on the “Polar Wolf” Arctic penal colony. Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh on Saturday confirmed his demise, citing an official discover given to his mom, Lydumila.

In central Moscow, 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..

Vladimir Nikitin, 36, was alone laying a carnation on the Solovetsky Stone, which hails from the islands with the identical title 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 demise is horrible: hopes have been smashed,” Nikitin mentioned.

“Navalny was a really severe man, a courageous man and now he’s now not with us. He spoke the reality – and that was very harmful as a result of some folks 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 photos of Navalny. One message learn: “We won’t overlook, nor we could forgive.”

“I got here as a result of I’ve grief,” mentioned Arkady, who declined to offer his second title. “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 demise. Western leaders didn’t cite proof.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov mentioned the response of Western leaders to the demise was unacceptable and “completely rabid”.

Russian authorities considered Navalny and his supporters as extremists with hyperlinks to the CIA intelligence company who’re looking for to destabilise Russia. They’ve outlawed his motion, forcing lots of his followers to flee overseas.

The demise 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 no less than 2030.

DEATH IN PRISON

The OVD-Information protest-monitoring group mentioned greater than 110 folks 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 mentioned was the huge corruption and opulence of the “crooks and thieves” working Putin’s Russia.

On the time of his demise he was serving jail sentences totalling greater than 30 years on a bunch of fees of extremism and fraud, which he denied and mentioned have been politically motivated.

His mom 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 – solid him as a Russian model of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, who would sooner or later stroll free to guide the nation.

His spouse, Yulia, instructed the Munich Safety Convention that Putin bore duty for her husband’s demise 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 displaying that almost all Russians disapproved of him and that Putin was vastly extra widespread.

“Navalny’s demise may be very useful to Putin’s opponents,” mentioned Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser.

“They are going to use it to undermine the legitimacy of the presidential election in Russia, use it to not recognise Putin because the reliable president. They’re making an attempt to current Putin not because the president of a hostile nation, however as a legal with whom nobody ought to must deal.”

Information of Navalny’s demise got here simply hours earlier than Ukraine withdrew from the south of the town of Avdiivka, paving the best way for Russia’s greatest advance within the nation since Might 2023.

WEST ‘NOT OUR FRIEND’

At “Patriki”, or Patriarch’s Ponds, the centre of Moscow nightlife, many younger Russians revelled away Friday night time simply hours after information of Navalny’s demise. There was no signal of unhappiness.

“It’s unhappy after all 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 is just not our buddy – you’re combating in opposition to us in Ukraine.”

On the bridge beside the Kremlin the place opposition chief Boris Nemtsov was shot useless on Feb. 27, 2015, flowers have been additionally eliminated in a single day. A makeshift vase of white and pink carnations remained with a small printed piece of paper.

“Boris Nemtsov was shot within the again and murdered right here,” the be aware mentioned.

Policemen regarded on as kids made their manner by the snow piled up within the shadow of Saint Basil’s Cathedral.