The mother of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has visited his grave, a day after thousands of Russians risked arrest to pay tribute to the anti-corruption campaigner at his funeral.
Navalny, who was Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic for more than a decade, died last month in a prison colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence for “extremism” charges largely regarded as retribution for his opposition to the Kremlin.
His mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, visited his grave, which was covered in flowers and wreaths, at the Borisovo cemetery in southern Moscow early on Saturday. She was accompanied by Alla Abrosimova, the mother of Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya.
Yulia Navalnaya, the couple’s two children and Navalny’s brother all live abroad and were unable to attend the funeral because of the risk of arrest for their own opposition to the Russian president.
Navalnaya has pledged to continue her husband’s work and said Putin “murdered” Navalny.
The day after Navalny’s funeral, a trickle of mourners lay flowers at his grave. There was a continued police presence at the cemetery, close to the banks of the Moskva River.
Thousands of Navalny’s followers queued for hours on Friday to pay their respects to the 47-year-old. As they streamed from a nearby church to the cemetery, some chanted “No to war!” and other pro-Navalny slogans, including branding Putin a “murderer” and calling for the release of political prisoners.
The rights monitoring group OVD-Info said Russian police had arrested at least 128 people attending tributes to Navalny in 19 cities on Friday.
Scenes of thousands marching in support of Navalny, demanding an end to Russia’s offensive in Ukraine and criticising the Kremlin, have not been seen in Russia since the first days after Moscow ordered hundreds of thousands of troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022.
The Kremlin has cracked down hard on dissent and used strict military censorship laws to prosecute hundreds who have spoken out against the campaign.
