The United States is imposing sanctions on three Russian government officials over the death in custody of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the Treasury Department said Friday, a week after Russia’s most well-known opposition politician died in an Arctic penal colony.
Navalny’s sudden death prompted hundreds of Russians across the country to stream to impromptu memorials with flowers and candles for President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe. The Treasury Department today said that three officials would be designated by the State Department.
“This solemn anniversary and Aleksey Navalny’s death in Russian custody are stark and tragic reminders of Putin’s brazen disregard for human life, from Ukrainians suffering the costs of his unprovoked war to people across Russia who dare to expose the corrupt abuses that fuel his regime,” said US Secretary of the Treasury Janet L Yellen in a statement.
Navalny’s mother said Thursday that she has seen her son’s body and that she is resisting heavy pressure to agree to a secret burial away from the public eye. Lyudmila Navalnaya said investigators allowed her to see her son’s body in the city morgue. She said she repeated her demand to have Navalny’s body returned to her and protested what she described as authorities trying to force her to agree to a secret burial.
“They are blackmailing me. They are setting conditions where, when and how my son should be buried,” she said Thursday in a video statement from the Arctic city of Salekhard. “They want it to do it secretly without a mourning ceremony.” Navalny’s spokesman, Kira Yarmysh, said on X, that his mother was also shown a medical certificate stating that the 47-year-old politician died of “natural causes.” Yarmysh didn’t specify what those were.
On Friday, cultural icons including Nobel Prize-winning journalist Dmitry Muratov and ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov released videos calling on Russian authorities to return the body of Navalny to his family. Posting on social media, prominent Russians directly appealed to President Vladimir Putin, demanding that he return Navalny’s body to his family. “Just give Lyudmila her son,” Muratov, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize said, adding, “It’s awkward to talk about this in a country that still considers itself Christian.”
(With agency inputs)
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