Russian opposition leader’s body found bruised in Arctic morgue

The bruised body of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, was found in a hospital morgue in the Arctic, two days after he died in a nearby prison.

A paramedic told Russian opposition media that there were bruises on Navalny’s head and chest when his body was brought into the Salekhard District Clinical Hospital, The Telegraph reported on February 18.

“Such injuries, described by those that saw them, appear from seizures,” the unnamed paramedic told the exiled Novaya Gazeta newspaper.

“The person convulses, they try to restrain him, and bruises appear. They also said that he also had a bruise on his chest. That is, they still tried to resuscitate him, and he died, most likely, from cardiac arrest.”

Russian prison officials said that Navalny died on February 16 after falling ill during a short walk at IK-3, a notoriously brutal prison in the Russian Arctic.

Navalny’s mother failed to find his body at the morgue in Salekhard on February 17 and his colleagues at the Anti-Corruption Foundation accused the Russian authorities of a cover-up.

Reporters said no autopsy had yet been performed. They also said that two unscheduled flights from Moscow had landed on February 17 at Salekhard, possibly with autopsy specialists.

“The first jet landed at about six in the evening. It was met by cars of the Investigative Committee. And the second one arrived an hour and a half later,” Novaya Gazeta quoted an unnamed source as saying.

Russia observers said that state autopsy specialists may have been flown in from Moscow so that they can deliver a death certificate that pleases the Kremlin.

They also said that it was unusual to send the body of a dead prisoner from IK-3 to the hospital morgue, as Navalny’s had been, rather than the municipal one.

Navalny was Vladimir Putin’s most serious opponent. Western leaders have accused the Kremlin of murdering him. He was facing three decades in prison on various charges and had been transferred to IK-3 shortly before Christmas.

The sudden death of Navalny shocked liberal-minded Russians and triggered rare protests in Russia where demonstrations against the Kremlin are banned.

Reports from across Russia said that the plain-clothes security services, often wearing surgical masks, were following people who had laid flowers. Different police forces appeared to respond differently, with some blocking access to memorial sites and others tearing them down.

These were the biggest nationwide protests in Russia against the authorities since September 2022, when Putin ordered a mobilisation to recruit soldiers for his war in Ukraine.

Analysts said that the timing of Navalny’s death is important for the Kremlin which wants to use a presidential election next month to showcase support for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago.