Russia: Navalny’s Mom Says Resisting Pressure to Agree to Secret Burial

A still image taken from handout video provided by the Navalny Team shows Lyudmila Navalnaya delivering a statement in Salekhard, Yamal-Nenets Region, Russia, 22 February 2024.  EPA/NAVALNY TEAM /HANDOUT
A still image taken from handout video provided by the Navalny Team shows Lyudmila Navalnaya delivering a statement in Salekhard, Yamal-Nenets Region, Russia, 22 February 2024. EPA/NAVALNY TEAM /HANDOUT
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Russia: Navalny’s Mom Says Resisting Pressure to Agree to Secret Burial

A still image taken from handout video provided by the Navalny Team shows Lyudmila Navalnaya delivering a statement in Salekhard, Yamal-Nenets Region, Russia, 22 February 2024.  EPA/NAVALNY TEAM /HANDOUT
A still image taken from handout video provided by the Navalny Team shows Lyudmila Navalnaya delivering a statement in Salekhard, Yamal-Nenets Region, Russia, 22 February 2024. EPA/NAVALNY TEAM /HANDOUT

The mother of Russia’s top opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Thursday that she has seen her son's body and that she is resisting strong pressure by authorities to bury her son in secret without a funeral.

Speaking in a YouTube video statement from the Arctic city of Salekhard, Lyudmila Navalnaya said investigators allowed her to see her son’s body in the city morgue. She said she reaffirmed the demand to give Navalny’s body 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. “They want it to do it secretly without a mourning ceremony.”
Navalny's spokesman Kira Yarmysh said on X, formerly Twitter, 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.
Navalny, Russia's most well-known opposition politician, suddenly died in an Arctic prison last week, prompting hundreds of Russians across the country to stream to impromptu memorials with flowers and candles. The Russian authorities have detained scores of them as they seek to suppress any major outpouring of sympathy for Vladimir Putin's fiercest foe ahead of the presidential election he is almost certain to win.
Navalny’s mother has filed a lawsuit at a court in Salekhard contesting officials’ refusal to release her son’s body. A closed-door hearing has been scheduled for March 4. On Tuesday, she appealed to Putin to release her son’s remains so that she could bury him with dignity.
In the video released Thursday, Navalnaya said she had spent nearly 24 hours in the Salekhard office of the Investigative Committee, where officials told her that they have determined the politician's cause of death and have the paperwork ready, but she has to agree to a secret funeral.

Navalny survived an attempt to poison him in Siberia in 2020 with what Western laboratories said was a Russian-made nerve agent, Novichok. In prison since January 2021, he had endured long spells in solitary confinement.



Grossi Wants to Meet with Iran’s Pezeshkian ‘at Earliest Convenience’

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi speaks to the media at the Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington, US, March 15, 2023. (Reuters)
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi speaks to the media at the Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington, US, March 15, 2023. (Reuters)
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Grossi Wants to Meet with Iran’s Pezeshkian ‘at Earliest Convenience’

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi speaks to the media at the Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington, US, March 15, 2023. (Reuters)
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi speaks to the media at the Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington, US, March 15, 2023. (Reuters)

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi announced he intends to visit Tehran through a letter he addressed to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Iranian Mehr Agency reported that Grossi sent a congratulatory message to the Iranian president-elect, which stated: “I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to you on your election win as President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

“Cooperation between the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Islamic Republic of Iran has been at the focal attention of the international circles for many years. I am confident that, together, we will be able to make decisive progress on this crucial matter.”

“To that effect, I wish to express my readiness to travel to Iran to meet with you at the earliest convenience,” Iran’s Mehr news agency quoted Grossi as saying.

The meeting – should it take place - will be the first for Pezeshkian, who had pledged during his election campaign to be open to the West to resolve outstanding issues through dialogue.

Last week, American and Israeli officials told the Axios news site that Washington sent a secret warning to Tehran last month regarding its fears of Iranian research and development activities that might be used to produce nuclear weapons.

In May, Grossi expressed his dissatisfaction with the course of the talks he held over two days in Iran in an effort to resolve outstanding matters.

Since the death of the former Iranian president, Ibrahim Raisi, the IAEA chief refrained from raising the Iranian nuclear file, while European sources said that Tehran had asked to “freeze discussions” until the internal situation was arranged and a new president was elected.