Death of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny confirmed by his representatives

The death of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, has been confirmed by his representatives after international leaders condemned Vladimir Putin for the demise of his once most significant political challenger.

Navalny, 47, died in jail on 16 February at 2.17pm, said his official spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, citing a message from Navalny’s mother and challenging Russia’s official explanation that Navalny died after a fall at the Arctic penal colony where he was being held.

“Alexei Navalny was murdered,” Yarmysh wrote on X. “We demand that Alexei Navalny’s body be handed over to his family immediately.”

A fractured picture of what happened emerged on Saturday after the confirmation of Navalny’s death, as different accounts of the cause of death and the whereabouts were given by the penal colony to relatives and allies of the Russian opposition leader.

Alexei Navalny: police in Russia crack down on protests as activists are detained – video report

An employee of the colony said Navalny’s body was in Salekhard after it was picked up by investigators from Russia’s investigative committee (IC), said Yarmysh, who has been Navalny’s press secretary since 2014.

In a later statement, Yarmysh said Navalny’s body was not at the Salekhard morgue when his lawyer and his mother arrived on Saturday. There they were told that the cause of death was sudden death syndrome, according to Navalny’s associate and director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, Ivan Zhdanov. Another lawyer of Navalny’s, however, was told by the penal colony’s investigative committee that the cause of death had not yet been established, Yarmysh said.

Alexei Navalny, centre, and his official spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, foreground left, pose inside a bus in Russia in August 2020. Photograph: gluchinskiy/AP

“The results will supposedly be available next week. It’s obvious that they are lying and doing everything they can to avoid handing over the body,” said Yarmysh, adding that the IC said Navalny’s body would not be handed over to his family until the investigation was complete.

“Everything about the ‘thrombus’ turned out to be a lie, as expected. The body is not being released because the cause of death has not been established,” Zhdanov wrote on X.

The death of the jailed Kremlin critic drew swift condemnation from international leaders, senior western officials and Russian opposition figures on Friday, who placed blame firmly on Russia and called the death a “further sign of Putin’s brutality”.

Navalny had been serving a decades-long prison term on various charges, the latest of which was a 19-year sentence on six counts, in a remote penal colony within the Arctic Circle. He had been behind bars since returning from Germany in January 2021 for charges that he rejected as politically motivated.

His death has been a watershed moment for the country’s fractured pro-democracy movement, which has practically ceased to exist since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In cities across Europe on Friday, hundreds of protesters, many of them Russian émigrés, gathered to express their outrage over the death of Navalny, the most formidable domestic opponent of the Russian president.

Confirmation of the opposition leaders’ death came as world leaders gathered at the annual Munich Security Conference to discuss topics including international unity against Russia’s two-year war on Ukraine, the Middle East crisis and the implications that a second Donald Trump US presidential victory would have for transatlantic security.

After Navalny’s death was reported by Russian authorities on Friday, the US vice-president, Kamala Harris said: “Let us be clear, Russia is responsible.” Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was equally blunt: “It’s obvious he was killed by Putin.” The French president, Emmanuel Macron, saluted Navalny’s “memory, commitment and courage”.

Speaking to broadcasters in Munich on Saturday, the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, signalled there would be “consequences”, but beyond summoning the Russian foreign ambassador and urging other G7 foreign ministers at the Munich gathering to take action, he fell short of announcing what exact measures would be taken.

“What we do is we look at whether there are individual people that are responsible and whether there are individual measures and actions we can take. We don’t announce them in advance, so I can’t say any more than that. But that is what we will be looking at,” said Cameron.

“Reflecting overnight makes you think what an incredibly brave man this was. His life revealed so much about the true nature of Putin’s ghastly regime. And his death has revealed that all over again.”