International Courant
A protester carries an indication with a photograph of the late Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny as individuals collect for a rally in entrance of the Russian Embassy in Warsaw on February 16, 2024.
Sergei Gapon | Episode | Getty Pictures
For the reason that loss of life of Alexei Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most formidable opponent, greater than 400 individuals have been detained at occasions in 32 Russian cities, in line with rights group OVD-Information, as Russians continued to gather and lay flowers.
It’s the largest wave of arrests at political occasions in Russia since September 2022, when greater than 1,300 individuals had been arrested at demonstrations towards a “partial mobilization” of reservists for Putin’s navy marketing campaign in Ukraine.
Navalny, a 47-year-old former lawyer, fell unconscious and died Friday after strolling by the Arctic area’s “Polar Wolf” penal colony, the place he was serving a three-decade jail sentence, the jail service mentioned.
OVD-Information, which experiences on freedom of meeting in Russia, mentioned the biggest numbers of arrests occurred in St. Petersburg and Moscow, the place Navalny’s help has historically been robust. Greater than 200 individuals had been being held in St. Petersburg as of 2000 GMT Saturday.
However the occasions weren’t reported on Russia’s state information companies, that are beneath full management of the Kremlin. There have been additionally no tales concerning the a whole bunch of individuals throughout Russia who continued to problem authorities to put flowers at makeshift Navalny monuments.
Navalny’s loss of life deprives Russia’s disparate opposition of its most outstanding chief as Putin prepares for March’s presidential election — a poll field that may maintain the previous KGB spy in energy till a minimum of 2030.
Footage filmed by Reuters in St. Petersburg on Saturday confirmed dozens of individuals gathering at a monument to the victims of the repression. Protesters laid flowers and candles, whereas some sang hymns and others hugged one another and shed tears.
“I felt very sorry for him and for our nation,” mentioned an 83-year-old lady who attended the vigil and declined to offer her identify. “I am afraid.”
A Reuters reporter on the scene mentioned about 30 individuals had been arrested shortly after the singing ended.
Flowers proceed to seem
OVD-Information additionally reported particular person arrests in smaller cities throughout Russia, from the border city of Belgorod, the place seven individuals had been killed in a Ukrainian rocket assault on Thursday, to Vorkuta, an Arctic mining outpost that was as soon as a middle of the Gulag labor camps from the Stalin period. .
On-line information outlet SOTA reported that residents of Luhansk, a Ukrainian territory now beneath Russian management, laid flowers in Navalny’s honor at a monument commemorating the victims of Soviet Union chief Joseph Stalin.
In one other metropolis, flowers had been laid at a monument to the heroes of the Russian Revolution from the early twentieth century.
“Regardless of authorities’ efforts to take away the flowers, they proceed to seem,” SOTA experiences.
Footage filmed by Reuters in Moscow confirmed regulation enforcement officers pinning individuals to the bottom within the snow, close to a spot the place mourners had left flowers and messages in help of the late opposition chief.
“There could also be extra detainees in every police division than on the revealed lists,” in line with OVD-Information. “We solely publish the names of these individuals about whom we’ve got dependable information and whose names we will publish.”
Reuters couldn’t instantly confirm the depend. Police declined to remark.
