Mourners gathered in Moscow Monday to mark two years because the death in custody of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, under the shadow of a Kremlin crackdown and just two days since a brand new evaluation reinforced suspicions that he was killed by poisoning.
Navalny died in an Arctic penal colony on Feb. 16, 2024, while serving a 19-year sentence that many believed to be politically motivated. His death on the age of 47 left the Russian opposition leaderless and divided, struggling to construct an efficient or united front without certainly one of its most visible and charismatic figures.
On the second anniversary of Navalny’s death, we have a look at the most recent investigation into its cause and the continuing political repercussions, each inside Russia and beyond.
Across Russia, Navalny’s supporters pay their respects
Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, and his mother-in-law, Alla Abrosimova, were among the many mourners laying flowers on his grave. A mound of bouquets rose above the heavy drifts of snow that blanketed Moscow’s Borisovsky Cemetery.
Representatives from several European embassies also paid their respects, watched by a conspicuously high security presence. Later, a small choir gathered to sing by Navalny’s graveside.
A gaggle of ambassadors to Russia lay flowers on the grave of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, two years after his death, on the Borisovskoye Cemetery in Moscow, on Monday, Feb. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko).
Addressing the gang, Lyudmila Navalnaya restated her belief that her son was killed by the Russian authorities, a scenario which has also been backed by several European countries in recent days. “We knew that our son didn’t simply die in prison,” she said.
“He was murdered.”
The Kremlin has denied the allegations, saying that Navalny died of natural causes.
Flowers were also laid on the memorial to the victims of political repression in St Petersburg. Access to the location was later blocked with temporary fences, local news outlets reported.
European nations consider Navalny was poisoned
The anniversary coincides with the discharge of a joint statement by five European countries, which said that Navalny was poisoned by the Kremlin with a rare and lethal toxin present in the skin of poison dart frogs.
The foreign ministries of the U.K., France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said on Saturday that evaluation in European labs of samples taken from Navalny’s body “conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine.” The neurotoxin secreted by dart frogs in South America is just not found naturally in Russia, they said.
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A joint statement said: “Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to manage this poison.”
In a written tribute to Navalny on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron also linked the Kremlin with the opposition leader’s death.
“Two years ago, the world learned of the death of Alexei Navalny. I pay tribute to his memory,” Macron wrote on social media. “I said then that I believed his death said all the pieces in regards to the Kremlin’s weakness and its fear of any opponent. It’s now clear that this death was premeditated.
“Truth all the time prevails, while we await justice to do the identical.”
Moscow has vehemently denied its involvement in Navalny’s death, saying that the politician had change into unwell after going for a walk.
When asked in regards to the allegations by journalists on Monday, presidential spokesperson said that the Kremlin does “not accept such accusations.”
“We consider them biased and unfounded. The truth is, we resolutely reject them,” he said.
Saturday’s announcement got here as Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, attended the Munich Security Conference in Germany. She said she had been “certain from the primary day” that her husband had been poisoned, “but now there may be proof.”
“Putin killed Alexei with a chemical weapon,” she wrote on social media, describing the Russian leader as “a murderer” who “should be held accountable.”
Navalny was the goal of an earlier poisoning in 2020, with a nerve agent in an attack he blamed on the Kremlin, which all the time denied involvement. His family and allies fought to have him flown to Germany for treatment and recovery. Five months later, he returned to Russia, where he was immediately arrested and imprisoned for the last three years of his life.
Russia’s opposition is struggling to start out a brand new chapter
Navalny’s closest allies, in addition to other key members of Russia’s opposition, now proceed their fight from exile.
Many have been handed lengthy prison sentences in absentia in Russia and are unable to return home. Some have been designated “terrorists and extremists” by the authorities, a designation that was also applied to Navalny in January 2022.
Yet Russia’s opposition has didn’t form a united front and a transparent plan of motion against the Kremlin. As a substitute, rival groups have traded accusations that some see as efforts to discredit one another and vie for influence.
In a single small victory for opposition activists, Europe’s leading human rights body, PACE, announced in late January the creation of a brand new body — the Platform for Dialogue with Russian Democratic Forces — tasked with giving opposition Russians a voice and a proper platform to interact European lawmakers.
It has been heralded as a victory for anti-war Russians, but in addition attracted criticism because the body was not elected democratically.
Members of Navalny’s anti-corruption organization are also absent from the group
In an announcement to mark Navalny’s death, Russian members of the Council of Europe’s human rights body, PACE, said that Navalny’s death was “an inevitable link in a series of systemic crimes by the Kremlin regime against its own residents and the residents of foreign states.”
“Alexei Navalny gave his life for a free Russia,” the statement said. “We’re obliged to be sure that his death was not in vain.”