Russian citizens who demonstrated their mourning for the death of imprisoned dissident Alexei Navalny face arrest and potential deployment to the front lines of the war in Ukraine, local journalists report.
“The summonses say that the arrested people must report to the enlistment office within a few days to verify their information and register for military service,” according to Rotonda, a Telegram account run by local journalists.
“They arrested me while I was placing flowers,” an unnamed Russian man told a human rights organization, as translated by Meduza, an independent Russian media outlet now based in Latvia. “They sentenced me to three days in jail, and they gave me the summons before my release. I don’t have a criminal record and I never have. I’m supposed to report there before [Feb.] 27.
“At least six St. Petersburg residents who were arrested while leaving flowers at makeshift memorials for Alexey Navalny have been served military summonses.”
Russian prison authorities announced Navalny’s death in an Arctic penal colony last week, sending a political shock wave through civil society and international diplomatic circles. His death spurred impromptu gatherings in dozens of Russian cities, often staged at monuments to victims of Soviet repression, but hundreds of the mourners were arrested as Russian police and plainclothes authorities tried to keep the show of support for Navalny to a minimum.
Navalny’s death has renewed international fears for the fate of other dissidents imprisoned in Russia or Belarus, the client regime that Putin preserved in the face of mass protests against an election widely perceived as having been rigged in favor of longtime autocrat Alexander Lukashenko. President Joe Biden’s team has promised to unveil “major sanctions” on Russia in response to his death, and British authorities have already blacklisted the officials who oversee the prison where he died.
“It’s clear that the Russian authorities saw Navalny as a threat and they tried repeatedly to silence him,” British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said Wednesday when London’s sanctions were unveiled. “FSB operatives poisoned him with Novichok in 2020, they imprisoned him for peaceful political activities, and they sent him to an Arctic penal colony. No one should doubt the oppressive nature of the Russian system.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, reportedly gave the deputy director of Russia’s prison system a promotion.
“The Russian government’s website shows that the decree was signed on February 19,” Meduza noted. “The [prison system] announced Navalny’s death on February 16.”
Navalny’s mother has filed a lawsuit to receive his body for burial, which she announced in a video recorded in the remote Siberian town where he died.
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“I have not been able to see his body for five days. They have not handed it over to me and have not even told me where it is,” she said. “I am turning to you, Vladimir Putin, because the solution to this problem depends only on you. Let me finally see my son. I demand that Alexei’s body be released immediately so that I can bury him in a humane way.”
In parallel, Russian authorities issued a warrant for the arrest of Oleg Navalny, Alexei’s brother. “Law enforcement agencies told TASS that new charges had been filed against Oleg Navalny, without giving any details,” the state-run media outlet revealed Tuesday.