A girl locations a chunk of paper with phrases of grief for Alexei Navalny paying the final respect to him on the Memorial to Victims of Political Repression in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Saturday.

Dmitri Lovetsky/AP

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Dmitri Lovetsky/AP

A girl locations a chunk of paper with phrases of grief for Alexei Navalny paying the final respect to him on the Memorial to Victims of Political Repression in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Saturday.

Dmitri Lovetsky/AP

The physique of Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny has been handed over to his mom, a high aide to Navalny stated Saturday on his social media account.

Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, made the announcement on his Telegram account and thanked “everyone” who had known as on Russian authorities to return Navalny’s physique to his mom.

Earlier Saturday, Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s widow, accused President Vladimir Putin of mocking Christianity by attempting to drive his mom to comply with a secret funeral after his loss of life in an Arctic penal colony.

“Thank you very much. Thanks to everyone who wrote and recorded video messages. You all did what you needed to do. Thank you. Alexei Navalny’s body has been given to his mother,” Zhdanov wrote.

Navalny, 47, Russia’s most well-known opposition politician, unexpectedly died on Feb. 16 in an Arctic penal colony and his household have been preventing for greater than every week to have his physique returned to them. Prominent Russians launched movies calling on authorities to launch the physique and Western nations have hit Russia with extra sanctions as punishment for Navalny’s loss of life in addition to for the second anniversary of its invasion of Ukraine.

Navalny’s mom, Lyudmila Navalnaya, continues to be in Salekhard, Navalny’s press secretary Kira Yarmysh stated on X, previously Twitter. Lyudmila Navalnaya has been within the Arctic area for greater than every week, demanding that Russian authorities return the physique of her son to her.

“The funeral is still pending,” Yarmysh tweeted, questioning whether or not authorities will enable it to go forward “as the family wants and as Alexei deserves.”

Earlier Saturday, Navalny’s widow stated in a video that Navalny’s mom was being “literally tortured” by authorities who had threatened to bury Navalny within the Arctic jail. They, she stated, recommended to his mom that she didn’t have a lot time to decide as a result of the physique is decomposing, Navalnaya stated.

“Give us the body of my husband,” Navalnaya stated earlier Saturday. “You tortured him alive, and now you keep torturing him dead. You mock the remains of the dead.”

Navalny, 47, Russia’s most well-known opposition politician, unexpectedly died on Feb. 16 within the penal colony, prompting tons of of Russians throughout the nation to stream to impromptu memorials with flowers and candles.

Authorities have detained scores of individuals as they search to suppress any main outpouring of sympathy for Putin’s fiercest foe earlier than the presidential election he’s virtually sure to win. Russians on social media say officers do not wish to return Navalny’s physique to his household, as a result of they concern a public present of help for him.

Navalnaya accused Putin, an Orthodox Christian, of killing Navalny.

“No true Christian could ever do what Putin is now doing with the body of Alexei,” she stated, asking, “What will you do with his corpse? How low will you sink to mock the man you murdered?”

Saturday marked 9 days for the reason that opposition chief’s loss of life, a day when Orthodox Christians maintain a memorial service.

People throughout Russia got here out to mark the event and honor Navalny’s reminiscence by gathering at Orthodox church buildings, leaving flowers at public monuments or holding one-person protests.

Muscovites lined up outdoors the town’s Christ the Savior Cathedral to pay their respects, in line with images and movies revealed by impartial Russian information outlet SOTAvision. The video additionally exhibits Russian police stationed close by and officers stopping a number of individuals for an ID examine.

As of early Saturday afternoon, at the very least 27 individuals had been detained in 9 Russian cities for displaying help for Navalny, in line with the OVD-Info rights group that tracks political arrests.

They included Sergei Karabatov, 64, who laid flowers at a Moscow monument to victims of political repression, together with a handwritten notice saying “Don’t think this is the end.” Also arrested was Aida Nuriyeva, from the town of Ufa close to the Ural Mountains, who stood in a avenue with an indication saying “Putin is Navalny’s murderer! I demand that the body be returned!”

Putin is usually pictured at church, dunking himself in ice water to have a good time the Epiphany and visiting holy websites in Russia. He has promoted what he has known as “traditional values” with out which, he as soon as stated, “society degrades.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected allegations that Putin was concerned in Navalny’s loss of life, calling them “absolutely unfounded, insolent accusations about the head of the Russian state.”

Musician Nadya Tolokonnikova, who grew to become broadly identified after spending almost two years in jail for participating in a 2012 protest together with her band Pussy Riot inside Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral, was one in every of many distinguished Russians who launched a video during which she accused Putin of hypocrisy and requested him to launch Navalny’s physique.

“We were imprisoned for allegedly trampling on traditional values. But no one tramples on traditional Russian values more than you, Putin, your officials and your priests who pray for all the murder that you do, year after year, day after day,” stated Tolokonnikova, who lives overseas. “Putin, have a conscience, give his mother the body of her son.”

Lyudmila Navalnaya stated Thursday that investigators allowed her to see her son’s physique within the morgue within the Arctic metropolis of Salekhard. She had filed a lawsuit at a courtroom in Salekhard contesting officers’ refusal to launch the physique. A closed-door listening to had been scheduled for March 4.

Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokesman, stated that Lyudmila Navalnaya was proven a medical certificates stating that her son died of “natural causes.”