The gathered people placed flowers and candles at the memorial to the victims of the Soviet occupation, they also placed A. Navalny’s portrait there, some of them cried.
Born and raised in Lithuania, 23-year-old Aleksei Jakovs said at first he mightn’t believe it, but emphasized that “it had to happen.”
“I don’t think anything really special happened today. He has suffered long enough,” A. Jakov told BNS.
He said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime was “definitely responsible” for Navalny’s death, but the international community might do nothing to stop him.
“There has to be a reaction and there will be, but I can’t imagine what would have to happen for him to change course,” he said.
A Russian woman who came to Lithuania from Russia last year and refused to give her name, told BNS that A. Navalnas was “a person who expressed my opinion and gave me hope”.
“Even from prison, he was able to find strength and give it to those who resisted,” she said.
“Even today I talked to my friends and told them I thought he was going to live forever,” she added.
The Russian Federal Penitentiary Service reported on Friday that A. Navalny died in a correctional colony in the Arctic, where he served a 19-year prison sentence. He was 47 years old.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said it had opened an investigation into his death.
In the international political arena, Moscow was accused of A.Navalno’s death.
A. Navalnas, the most prominent leader of the Russian opposition, gained immense popularity by criticizing corruption in Russia under the rule of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He organized massive anti-Kremlin protests until he was arrested in 2021 when he returned to Moscow from Germany, where he was being treated for poisoning with the nerve agent Novichok. He blames the Russian authorities for the poisoning. The latter denies having anything to do with it.
VIDEO: Video of Alexei Navalny the day before his death: healthy and joking
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2024-05-11 20:58:52
