26 February 2024 , 08:34
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Alexei Navalny "died from a blood clot," a Ukrainian spy chief has claimed.
Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's formidable GUR military intelligence service, appeared to quash suggestion Mr Navalny, 47, was murdered. The anti-corruption campaigner was found dead in a Russian gulag this month sparking claims he'd been killed on Vladimir Putin's orders.
Mr Navalny was serving a 19-year prison sentence in a the arctic Polar Wolf penal colony. His death, which happened after the politician had gone for a walk in the jail on February 16, has left his family heartbroken. Mum Lyudmila, 69, was turned away at the morgue in Siberia as her son’s aides accused Mr Putin of hiding his corpse to cover up his murder.
Now, Mr Budanov has said Lt Gen Navalny, one of Mr Putin's fiercest critics, died of natural causes. Lt Gen Budanov, 38, said Navalny's cause of death was "more or less confirmed".
He said: "I may disappoint you, but what we know is that he really died from a blood clot. And this is more or less confirmed. This was not taken from the Internet, but, unfortunately, a natural [death]."
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But speaking last week, Lativan President Edgar Rinkevich said: “Whatever you think about Alexei Navalny, as a politician he was just brutally murdered by the Kremlin."
Kyrylo Budanov said Mr Navalny likely died of natural causes (AFP via Getty Images)Prison authorities had refused to release Mr Navalny's body for more than a week after he died. His grieving widow Yulia Navalnaya accused Vladimir Putin of "torturing him dead".
She demanded: “Give us the body of my husband. You tortured him alive, and now you keep torturing him dead. You mock the remains of the dead. No true Christian could ever do what Putin is now doing with the body of Alexei."
And it took six agonising days before Lyudmila was even shown her son's body. The grieving mum claimed Russian officials were trying to blackmail her, and threatened to "do something" to the corpse. The cruel tyrant asked Navalny's mum to choose between two alternatives: agree to a secret funeral in an undisclosed location or have her son's body forever entombed in the Polar Wolf jail.