MOSCOW: A 12 months after Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny died behind bars, his supporters held memorial occasions on Sunday (Feb 16), with tons of risking reprisals by visiting his grave in Moscow.
All through the morning, folks braved glacial temperatures to file previous Navalny’s grave in Moscow’s Borisovskoye cemetery, defying warnings that authorities could be watching them.
In the meantime, world leaders together with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz paid tribute to Navalny’s legacy and decried Russian President Vladimir Putin’s autocratic rule.
Remembrance occasions have been going down with Russia’s opposition motion – pushed into exile by unprecedented repression – nonetheless suffering from infighting and badly weakened because the lack of its figurehead.
Exiled in varied nations, its main members have tried to revive the combat towards Putin’s lengthy reign, together with in Russia the place criticism of authorities is severely punished.
Navalny – Putin’s primary opponent – was declared an “extremist” by Russian authorities, a ruling that continues to be in power regardless of his demise in an Arctic penal colony on Feb 16, 2024.
In Russia, anyone who mentions Navalny or his Anti-Corruption Basis with out stating that they’ve been declared “extremist” is topic to fines, or as much as 4 years in jail for repeated offences.
Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, was set to share reminiscences of her husband at an occasion in Berlin, the place many Russian opposition supporters have settled.
In a video launched on Sunday, she urged supporters to maintain preventing for a “free, peaceable and exquisite” Russia.
Navalny’s former prime aide Leonid Volkov had urged supporters to mark the event in a Telegram publish, giving opening hours of the cemetery the place Navalny is buried.
