A demonstrator carries a placard with an image of late Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny as individuals collect to attend a rally in entrance of the Russian Embassy in Warsaw on Feb. 16, 2024.
Sergei Gapon | Afp | Getty Photographs
Greater than 400 individuals have been detained at occasions throughout 32 Russian cities for the reason that loss of life of Alexei Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most formidable opponent, in response to rights group OVD-Data, as Russians continued to collect and lay flowers.
It has been the most important wave of arrests at political occasions in Russia since Sept. 2022, when greater than 1,300 had been arrested at demonstrations in opposition to a “partial mobilisation” of reservists for Putin’s army marketing campaign in Ukraine.
Navalny, a 47-year-old former lawyer, fell unconscious and died on Friday after a stroll on the “Polar Wolf” Arctic penal colony the place he was serving a three-decade sentence, the jail service mentioned.
OVD-Data, which studies on freedom of meeting in Russia, mentioned the most important numbers of arrests occurred in St Petersburg and Moscow, the place Navalny’s assist had historically been sturdy. As of 2000 GMT on Saturday, greater than 200 individuals had been detained in St. Petersburg.
However there was no point out of the occasions on Russian state information businesses, that are underneath full Kremlin management. There was additionally no tales concerning the a whole lot of individuals throughout Russia who’ve continued to defy authorities to put flowers at impromptu Navalny memorials.
The loss of life of Navalny robs the disparate Russian opposition of its most outstanding chief as Putin prepares for the March presidential election – a rubber-stamp vote set to maintain the previous KGB spy in energy till at the least 2030.
Footage filmed by Reuters on Saturday in St Petersburg confirmed dozens gathering by a monument to the victims of repression. Protesters laid flowers and candles, whereas some sang hymns and others hugged one another, shedding tears.
“I felt very sorry for him and for our country,” mentioned an 83-year-old lady attending the vigil who declined to present her title. “I’m scared.”
A Reuters reporter on the scene mentioned some 30 individuals had been arrested shortly after the singing completed.
Flowers hold showing
OVD-Data additionally reported particular person arrests in smaller cities throughout Russia, from the border metropolis of Belgorod, the place seven had been killed in a Ukrainian missile strike on Thursday, to Vorkuta, an Arctic mining outpost as soon as a centre of the Stalin-era gulag labour camps.
The net information outlet SOTA reported that in Luhansk, an Ukrainian territory now underneath Russian management, residents laid flowers in Navalny’s honour at a monument commemorating the victims of the Soviet Union chief Joseph Stalin.
In one other metropolis, flowers had been laid at a monument to the heroes of the early twentieth century Russian Revolution.
“Despite the authorities’ attempts to remove the flowers, they keep appearing,” SOTA reported.
Footage filmed by Reuters in Moscow confirmed legislation enforcement bundling individuals to the bottom within the snow, near a spot the place mourners had left flowers and messages in assist of the lifeless opposition chief.
“In each police department there may be more detainees than in the published lists,” OVD-Data mentioned. “We publish only the names of those people about whom we have reliable knowledge and whose names we can publish.”
Reuters couldn’t instantly confirm the rely. Police declined to remark.
