Alexei Navalny killed by punch to the heart, claims activist – follow live

X, formerly known as Twitter, briefly banned the account of Alexei Navalny’s widow.

On Tuesday afternoon, however, the account disappeared. It was replaced with a message indicating that it had been suspended because it had broken the site’s rules.

The mother of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has filed a lawsuit at a court in the Arctic city of Salekhard contesting officials’ refusal to release her son’s body, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported Wednesday. A closed-door hearing has been scheduled for March 4, the report said, quoting court officials. Lyudmila Navalnaya has been trying to retrieve her son’s body since Saturday, following his death in a penal colony in Russia’s far north a day earlier. She has been unable to find out where his body is being held, Navalny‘s team reported. Navalnaya appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin Tuesday to release her son’s remains so that she could bury him with dignity.

“For the fifth day, I have been unable to see him. They wouldn’t release his body to me. And they’re not even telling me where he is,” a black-clad Navalnaya, 69, said in the video, with the barbed wire of Penal Colony No. 3 in Kharp, about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow.

But on Monday, as the 47-year-old widow alternated between rage and grief, she gave a powerful speech signalling that she would be there to help lead a shell-shocked opposition – a job fraught with danger.

“I want to live in a free Russia, I want to build a free Russia,” said the mother-of-two in a video message. Stepping out of the shadow of her dead husband, she called on his supporters to “share the rage” and “stand” with her.

Former US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Alexei Navalny was “a very brave man” who probably should not have returned to Russia, without assigning any blame for the Russian opposition leader’s unexpected death.

Democratic President Joe Biden and other Western leaders have blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for Navalny‘s death, as has Nikki Haley, who trails far behind Trump as his sole remaining rival for the Republican presidential nomination.

“Navalny is a very sad situation, and he is a very brave, he was a very brave guy because he went back. He could have stayed away,” Trump said during a town hall interview with Fox News in South Carolina.

“And, frankly, he probably would have been a lot better off staying away and talking from outside of the country as opposed to having to go back in, because people thought that could happen and it did happen. And it’s a horrible thing,” he said.

The Kremlin has denied involvement in Navalny‘s death and said Western claims that Putin was responsible are unacceptable.

Trump – who has expressed admiration for Putin both during his 2017-2021 White House tenure and afterward – continued to compare himself to Navalny, implying that they both had faced politically motivated prosecutions.

“But it’s happening in our country too,” Trump said. “We are turning into a communist country in many ways. And if you look at it – I’m the leading candidate. I get indicted.”

On Sunday, Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that Navalny‘s death in an Arctic penal colony last week had made him “more aware of what is happening” in the United States. Trump did not elaborate, but he has frequently dismissed the 91 criminal charges against him as politically motivated, a claim prosecutors deny.

“The reason why it all happened is one man’s hatred and fear – one man hiding in a bunker. I mortally offended him by surviving an attempt at my life he ordered. And then I committed an even more serious offence: I didn’t go into hiding. And that’s driving this thieving little man in his bunker out of his mind.”

So declared the accused from behind his courtroom cage as he prepared to be sentenced to jail. His crime was to have challenged the man in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, with the one tool remaining, the power of speech.

That act of defiance exactly three years ago, was the beginning of the end of the life of Alexei Navalny.

Speaking to reporters on a conference call, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the United States is pressing Russia for “complete transparency” on how Alexei Navalny died last Friday.

“Whatever story the Russian government decides to tell the world, it’s clear that President Putin and his government are responsible for Mr Navalny’s death,” Mr Kirby said.

The US embassy in Moscow has been seeking more information about Navalny’s death, Mr Kirby said, “but it’s difficult to get a point where you can be confident in what the Russians would say about his death”.

The UK is poised to set out its response to the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, with foreign secretary Lord Cameron telling Vladimir Putin: “We match our words with actions”.

Lord David Cameron will also condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine and stress the need for nations to adhere to the rules-based international order when he speaks at a meeting of foreign ministers from the G20 nations in Rio on Wednesday.

“We need to adapt international rules and institutions to the challenges we face today. This means reforming the rules-based international order, not shattering it,” said Lord Cameron as he takes aim at what he sees as a litany of hypocrisy from the Kremlin over Ukraine.

“The Kremlin pays lip service to concepts like sovereignty, while openly undermining them. Unlike Russia, we match our words with actions.”

Lord Cameron’s Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov is expected to be among the foreign ministers at the G20 gathering.

The mother of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny appealed on Tuesday to president Vladimir Putin to intervene and turn her son’s body over to her so she can bury him with dignity.

Lyudmila Navalnaya, who has been trying to get his body since Saturday, appeared in a video outside the Arctic penal colony where Navalny died on Friday.“For the fifth day, I have been unable to see him. They wouldn’t release his body to me. And they’re not even telling me where he is,” Ms Navalnaya said in the video, with the barbed wire of Penal Colony No 3 in Kharp, about 1,900km northeast of Moscow.

“I’m reaching out to you, Vladimir Putin. The resolution of this matter depends solely on you. Let me finally see my son. I demand that Alexei’s body is released immediately, so that I can bury him like a human being,” she said in the video, which was posted to social media by Navalny’s team.

Ms Navalnaya and her son’s lawyers went to law enforcement agencies and the morgue where the body is believed to be held in the Arctic region, but were unable to get them to turn it over or say where it is.

The European Union summoned Russia’s representative to the EU and called for an independent international investigation into the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the EU’s diplomatic service said on Tuesday.

It said Michael Siebert, a senior official in the European External Action Service, also urged Russia to release Navalny’s body to his family without further delay at the meeting with Kirill Loginov, Russia’s acting permanent representative to the EU.

“The EU side conveyed the EU’s outrage over the death of the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, for which the ultimate responsibility lies with President (Vladimir) Putin and the Russian authorities,” it said.

Mr Siebert “called upon Russia to allow an independent and transparent international investigation into circumstances” of Navalny’s death, it added.

The Kremlin has denied involvement in Navalny’s death and says Western allegations that Putin was responsible are unacceptable. Russia’s Investigative Committee says it has launched a procedural investigation into the death, and the Kremlin has said it does not bow to EU demands.