A secret flight, a farewell near a cemetery, and a funeral on a workday
The Kremlin's full set of conditions, as outlined by Navalny's associate
This evening, an associate of the deceased politician Ivan Zhdanov during an emergency stream listed a list of demands that the Kremlin voiced to the mother Alexey Navalny in exchange for the body. How said earlier Lyudmila NavalnayaThe negotiations took place at the Investigative Committee building in Salekhard. They began on the morning of February 21 and lasted almost 24 hours. NeMoskva compiled the demands into a text version. The editors are publishing them as retold by Ivan Zhdanov.
How preparations for the auction proceeded
Lyudmila Ivanovna spent the last 24 hours in some kind of unbelievable hell. This video is the finale of that day of ongoing hell.
Investigator Varapaev On Saturday he also said, “We took the histological tests, they will take two weeks, and they won’t return your body for two weeks.”
Then, on Monday, Lyudmila Ivanovna records a petition to Putin asking for the body to be returned to her. And the very next day, the investigator summons her and says, "We're generally prepared to show you the body, but know this: you ask all your questions, we'll hand over all the documents, and then, when the forensic results are ready, we'll return the body to you."
Lyudmila Ivanovna says:
- Show me, okay.
- Well, we need to agree.
And this happens all the time: the investigator sits and constantly calls someone. On the first day, he called Bastrykin directly. He said it outright, frankly, he doesn't hide it: "I'm reporting to Bastrykin." And his orders, accordingly, come from Bastrykin.
It was like in Omsk: “in an hour,” “in two,” “let’s do it later,” “come the next day, early in the morning.”
So time constantly shifts. And gradually, nothing remains of the initial promise that "we will show you and give you the body."
They have all the documents on natural causes of death, and they're ready to print the death certificate at any moment. But they say, "We're ready to print it when we agree on all the terms. Because as soon as we print the death certificate, it appears in the unified registry office database, and everyone will know about it immediately. So we'll print it when we shake hands and confirm our agreement with you."
Yesterday, Wednesday, Lyudmila Ivanovna was told in the morning: “Come, but without a lawyer, without any accompaniment.”
Lyudmila Ivanovna agrees and goes to the investigator.
The Kremlin's conditions
Then, at this point, the bargaining begins with her: “Choose a funeral home, choose any cemetery where you want to bury Alexei Navalny, and we’ll go to the morgue with you now, show you the body, and tell you everything.”
Relatives begin to choose a cemetery, funeral parlor, or church for the funeral service.
But something happens at some point, and the promise starts to go back on itself. Three conditions, then.
First: a special plane, and until you arrive in Moscow, you don't say anything about the funeral. Nothing at all. So the plane lands in Moscow, and then you can talk. So that people don't have to meet the body at the airport.
The second condition: an Investigative Committee employee must be with you at all times, until the funeral.
And the third condition: you clearly designate a cemetery, and we will clearly determine the funeral date upon arrival, on February 23-24. The body will be stored in the Moscow or Vladimir region. Because we're afraid the morgue will be stormed. This is a direct quote; they're not hiding anything.
Meeting with the son's body
Okay, the terms are clear. No problem, relatives will inform you of the funeral date upon arrival in Moscow.
But at that moment, the following special operation takes place: a large number of police officers, three or four cars, all with flashing lights, drive up to the Investigative Committee, where Lyudmila Ivanovna is located. They somehow take Lyudmila Ivanovna around and take her to the morgue, where they show her her body.
Then she is returned to the Investigative Committee in the same special motorcade and told: by tomorrow you must clearly decide on the cemetery and the deadlines.
The Kremlin's New Conditions
This morning, they were supposed to report to the Investigative Committee with a lawyer at 10:00 a.m., but it all dragged on until 12:00 p.m. local time. And they were told that the cemetery they had chosen (the relatives had chosen Troekurovskoye Cemetery) was absolutely unsuitable; choose another one.
Later, the relatives chose Khovanskoye Cemetery.
They say: "Okay, Khovanskoye Cemetery. Now choose a hall."
Relatives say, "A hall in Moscow, the Central House of Writers, for example, where they said goodbye to Nosik. Or ZIL—his place of work, Avtozavodskaya. Or the large funeral hall of the Central Clinical Hospital." Well, those are acceptable options—an ordinary hall where they say goodbye.
The investigator calls the center, they approve it within an hour, and they come out and say, "No, that's not suitable. Let's move closer to the Khovanskoye Cemetery."
Lyudmila Ivanovna chooses a nearby hall: the Rachmaninoff Philharmonic No. 2 or the Church of the Archangel Michael, I think. They say, "No, that's not suitable either. Conduct the funeral quietly, right next to Khovanskoye Cemetery, right next to the church, and conduct everything in secret."
The leitmotif throughout these days has been that the funeral must be secret. That it must be conducted in a strictly family setting, in Prigozhin's style.
Blackmail and threats
At this point, it becomes perfectly clear to Lyudmila Ivanovna that she's being blackmailed, first to make an offer, and then to the point where she'll simply be deceived... Why would she need an Investigative Committee officer to meet her in Moscow? They'll simply put her in a car, take her to the cemetery, and say, "Here's the grave. You can stand here or not—he's buried here."
Everything is heading in this direction.
Lyudmila Ivanovna said these conditions were completely impossible, stood up, and walked out of the Investigative Committee. After that, this investigator, Varapaev, started calling her and saying, "But you know that the body is actually decomposing? And time is not on your side at all. So, think about it and agree to our terms. And you know, we also have some media resources to share more details that no one would probably want to know."
These are some of the most disgusting things you can imagine. A mother who hasn't slept for three days.
We're seasoned people; it's hard to surprise us. But blackmailing my mother with the decomposition of her body so she could bring it to Moscow and bury it secretly—it was certainly hard to imagine such baseness.
The body remains in the Salekhard morgue; they have everything ready for release; there's no reason to keep it. They're simply abusing the corpse as best they can.
I can't even recall such a thing. The case of Oliver Cromwell, who was exhumed for a special execution, came to mind. But I can't recall anyone being blackmailed with the decomposition of a body in modern times.
What is written in the death certificate?
It says "natural cause of death" [in the medical report], and Lyudmila Ivanovna was forced to sign it. I don't know at what point in the blackmail they told her, "Sign it, and we'll begin the rest of the procedure." She signed, and the rest of the procedure didn't happen.
As I understand it, she didn’t have time to clearly read what was written there: what the reasons were, what the diseases were.
There aren't any details yet. But it says "natural [cause of death]"—that's true.
Position of the team and family
I don't know if I can answer [questions about the family's position]. As far as I understand the situation, a normal human funeral is needed. And a [repeat] examination is not needed... It's completely clear who the killer is.
Yulia Navalnaya has already stated that there are specific reasons why this happened now. And they will be named.
We will find - absolutely definitely - the killers who did this.
There's a complex here that indicates this death was unnatural. It was pure murder.
Navalny's family demands that this procedure be completed and that Alexei Navalny be released as is required. There is currently no reason whatsoever to keep him in the morgue.
Navalny's family is expecting two scenarios: that Navalny's body will not be handed over at all and they will say it was buried somewhere or something like that; or that it will be handed over.
That's why Lyudmila Ivanovna turned to... She no longer turns to Putin. She turns to her supporters and hopes that they will return the body to her.
"Can I call Mom?"
As far as I understand, a special team of forensic pathologists arrived in Salekhard and performed some procedures on the body. Then investigators arrived: my theory is that they were determining whether it was a case of murder, whether traces of murder could be found.
I fully admit that these are groups that don't even know how the murder took place: they simply carried out the necessary investigations, procedures, and declared that there were no traces of murder. And they reported this to their superiors. Or they found traces of murder.
This happened over the course of three days. And the management said, "Okay, if there are no traces, then we can call Mom and start negotiating with her, start pushing her to avoid having the funeral in Moscow."
Navalny will be buried in Russia.
Alexey didn't return to Russia to be taken away from Russia anywhere now. And everyone understands this perfectly well.
Alexey can't imagine himself buried somewhere abroad. It's impossible.
He's an Orthodox Christian, so there should be a funeral service in the Russian Orthodox Church. And there should be a memorial service, because he's a politician. And a burial on his own land. He didn't return to Russia to be buried somewhere abroad.
Alexey is a politician, a huge number of people can support him.
There's still a time limit on a civil funeral service. The body can't remain outside the morgue for long anyway. The church funeral service, civil funeral service, and burial must all be held on the same day.
It's clear that absolutely everyone won't be able to say goodbye. Even if we allocate four hours for a civil funeral service and everything goes smoothly, there's an hour for the funeral service, an hour for travel, and an hour for the burial... This happened at Nemtsov's funeral: far from everyone had time to say goodbye to Boris Nemtsov. And I admit that not everyone will have time here either.
But this is the main fear of the investigators who are now carrying out the Kremlin's decision: that so many people will show up and then decide to go to the cemetery. Because an important point in these negotiations was that the hall and the cemetery be close to each other.
“Because there might be a march of a large number of people, and we don’t want that,” they said directly.
For the first three days, the traces of [the murder] were their primary concern; now, their primary concern is preventing this farewell, where the hero lies in his coffin, with Muscovites flocking to him and laying flowers. That's why they've resorted to outright blackmail.
The family was willing to agree to a private burial. But even that doesn't suit them [the investigators]. It's a constant deception: they can say something completely different 10 minutes later. And the constant theme is secret burials.
The body is in the Salekhard morgue.
Investigators said from the very beginning: we [are transporting] the entire plane. In this regard, Lyudmila Ivanovna said: "When would we pay anything for Alexei from our taxes?"
They said their plane and the investigator were nearby. At first, they said, "Fly on a regular flight." Then, at some point, a voice from above came again and said, "No, it's our plane, a separate one. But from the moment it lands at the airport, your funeral service will collect the body, but it will be accompanied by investigators' vehicles, and until the funeral, the body should be kept in a morgue somewhere in the Vladimir or Moscow region."
Therefore, the most likely scenario that is being considered here is that they pick up the body in Moscow, transport it, and then simply say: “Here is the grave, and that’s it.”
They also had a specific request: for it to happen after February 25th or 26th. On a weekday. Because they understand perfectly well that many more people might come to the funeral on a weekend. This is important to them, and that's why they delayed the flight itself: they knew the flight could only be arranged for February 24th, and the funeral itself would take place around the 26th or 27th.
