Russia’s brutal crackdown on Navalny vigils leads to hundreds of arrests

Hundreds of people have been detained by the Russian security services in a clampdown on vigils for opposition leader Alexei Navalny (Picture: Getty/Reuters/EPA/AP)

Almost 400 people trying to mourn Alexei Navalny at vigils across Russia have been detained with the ‘characteristic cruelty of the Kremlin’, a human rights group has said. 

The crackdown by Vladimir Putin’s security services has been described as part of his ‘meticulous assault’ on the freedom of expression.  

One of those seized, a priest who wanted to perform a memorial service for the prominent Kremlin critic, is said to have had a stroke in detention.  

Another mourner who brought flowers was beaten and forced into a gunpoint confession, according to OVD-Info, an independent Russian human rights defence and media group.

The Russia-wide crackdown has taken place after news broke on Friday of Navalny’s death in harsh conditions at a penal colony in the Arctic Circle.  

The 47-year-old opposition leader had been serving a 19-year sentence at the ‘Polar Wolf’ prison at the time of his death, which has been blamed on the Kremlin by his team and several Western leaders.

As Russians attempted to hold vigils, Putin’s security services detained 389 people in 39 locations, including Moscow, St Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Sochi and Belgorod, close to the border with Ukraine.  

Police detain a man at a civil memorial service to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in St Petersburg (Picture: EPA)

People gather in Moscow to lay flowers for Alexei Navalny at the Wall of Grief monument for victims of political repression (Picture: Reuters)

OVD-Info’s managing editor Dan Storyev told Metro.co.uk: ‘As for the wave of repression, it is marked with the characteristic cruelty of the Kremlin.  

‘What is important to remember is that this crackdown didn’t start with Navalny’s death or with the full-scale invasion. It is a part of the meticulous assault on Russian democracy that Putin launched over a decade ago.  

‘But despite the horrific repression — orthodox priest Father Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko, who wanted to perform a memorial service for Navalny, had a stroke in detention, Bakyt Karypbaev who brought flowers was beaten and had a gun pointed at him to force a confession — Russians continued and will continue to stand up against the Kremlin and the war.’

Evoking Navalny’s legacy, Mr Storyev said: ‘We and other civil society organisations will continue striving for a free and democratic Russia where human rights are respected and people are united.

‘This is the kind of Russia Navalny wanted to achieve.’   

Police detain a man during a gathering in memory of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny near the Wall of Grief monument (Picture: Reuters)

A woman is dragged away during a gathering in memory of Alexei Navalny near the Wall of Grief in Moscow (Picture: Reuters)

The priest’s wife said that Father Grigory, of the Apostolic Orthodox Church, was detained before the memorial at the Solovetsky Stone, a monument to victims of political repression located in Lubyanka Square, Moscow.  

Natalia Sivokhina told Holod, an independent Russian media platform whose name means ‘cold’ in English, that police approached her husband as soon as he left their house and charged him with a public order offence.  

Alexei Navalny is seen via video link from the IK-2 corrective penal colony in Pokrov before a court hearing in May 2022 (Picture: Reuters)

She said that he had been placed in a cell at a police station where his phone was seized before suffering a stroke and being taken to hospital.

Ms Sivokhina told Holod that doctors were about to carry out examinations and it was ‘difficult to say’ what had caused the life-threatening condition.

Father Grigory and his church have been openly helping Ukrainian refugees who have ended up in Russia after the outset of the full-scale invasion almost two years ago, including some 7,000 in the first four months alone.

He has called the attack a ‘war’ rather than use Putin’s term of a ‘special military operation’ and called for Russia to go back to its 1991 borders, which would return a swathe of occupied and annexed territory to Ukraine.  

Asked if she or her husband had ever met Navalny, Ms Sivokhina said: ‘I’ve never talked to him personally. I know that Grigory communicated with his mother. I believe that Alexei was a brave and courageous person.  

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny looks at photographers during a hearing at the Babuskinsky District Court in Moscow (Picture: AP)

‘And I’m scared of how his life ended. For me, it’s murder anyway. Even if he died himself, it is obvious that he was brought to this point. 

‘It’s an unprecedented story that unsettled me. I don’t have adequate words to describe my feelings, it’s just beyond my comprehension. 

‘On the other hand, I understand exactly how it happens. I see many political prisoners, I see people who are behind bars for nothing. But understanding does not mean resigning. I think that Grigory fully shares my feelings here.’ 

A woman leaves flowers as people pay tribute to Alexei Navalny at a memorial to victims of political repression in St Petersburg (Picture: AP)

Navalny’s spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, has described his death as a ‘murder’.

The exact circumstances of his death are still unclear, with Ms Yarmysh saying that the authorities are ‘driving us around in circles and covering their tracks’ as his family and colleagues try to locate his body.  

The Russian prison service said in a statement that Navalny ‘felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness’. 

Resuscitation attempts were carried out before ‘emergency doctors confirmed the death of the convict’, according to the official account.  

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