The funeral for Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny will take place Friday at a Moscow church and be open to the public, although it was not clear whether authorities may try to prevent people from attending.
Navalny's associates said several locations declined to host the service for the 47-year-old Navalny, the outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin who died in mid-February under suspicious circumstances in a remote Arctic penal colony.
Writing on the X media platform, Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said most possible funeral venues said they were fully booked, with some "refusing when we mention the surname 'Navalny,'" and one disclosing that "funeral agencies were forbidden to work with us."
Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, in a speech Wednesday to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, said, "The funeral will take place the day after tomorrow and I’m not sure yet whether it will be peaceful or whether police will arrest those who have come to say goodbye to my husband."
Dozens of Navalny supporters have been detained since his death when they laid flowers at various memorial sites.
Navalnaya won multiple standing ovations from the European lawmakers, telling them that her husband’s death "showed everyone that Putin is capable of anything, and that you cannot negotiate with him."
"Putin is the leader of an organized criminal gang," Navalnaya said. "You are not dealing with a politician but with a bloody mobster."
Russian authorities say the cause of Navalny's death is still unknown, although Western leaders have said they hold Putin responsible.
Navalny's associates originally wanted to hold his funeral on Thursday, but Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, said no venue would agree to hold it then because Putin is scheduled the same day to give his annual state-of-the-nation address to Russia's Federal Assembly.
After funeral plans were announced, Zhdanov, without elaborating, contended on the Telegram social messaging app, "Putin is releasing all his dogs to prevent the funeral from taking place normally."
Yarmysh said the funeral would be held at the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God Soothe My Sorrows, an imposing five-domed Russian Orthodox church in Moscow’s southeast Maryino district, where Navalny once lived.
He will be buried in the nearby Borisovskoye Cemetery, Yarmysh said.
Some material in this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
