Russia is refusing to hand over the body of Alexei Navalny, the chief political rival to Vladimir Putin who mysteriously died Friday at a remote prison colony above the Arctic Circle, for at least 14 days as they conduct a "chemical examination" to determine the cause of his death.
Navalny, 47, reportedly died when he fell unconscious after a walk at the Polar Wolf penal colony about 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow, where he was serving a nearly three-decade sentence on fraud, embezzlement, and extremism-related charges.
Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, 47, claimed in a video statement posted on the YouTube channel of her late husband's Anti-Corruption Foundation, that Russia is "shamefully and cowardly" hiding her husband's body so traces of the nerve agent Novichok disappears.
In August 2020, Navalny was hospitalized after being poisoned with Novichok, a bioweapon developed in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In 2022, the Chemical Weapons Convention added Novichok nerve agents to its list of banned chemical weapons.
"My husband was unbreakable and that's why Putin killed him," Navalnaya said. "Shamefully, cowardly, without ever looking him in the eye or mentioning his name.
"Just as shamefully and cowardly, they are now hiding his body, not showing it to his family, not giving it to them, but lying and waiting pitifully for the traces of Putin's Novichok to disappear."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier Monday that an investigation into Navalny's death was ongoing and lashed out at critics who blame Putin for his death, the independent Moscow Times reported. Putin has not commented on the death of his most vocal critic.
Although no cause of death has officially been released, multiple media outlets reported Navalny's mother, Lyudmila, 69, was told Saturday at the penal colony her son died of "sudden death syndrome."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.