A Funeral in Moscow

“Thousands of mourners gathered in Moscow on Friday to say goodbye to the late opposition figure Alexei Navalny, the Kremlin’s most prominent critic.” So begins a report in the Moscow Times. Obviously, this paper cannot be published in Russia. The paper is in exile — yet it continues to have reporters in Russia, who work at considerable risk.

I will quote again from the report:

Following Navalny’s death, the Kremlin held a series of meetings with senior FSB and Interior Ministry generals to plan how to prevent the funeral from capturing the public’s attention . . .

Masked agents in civilian clothes were seen monitoring the crowd.

“I’m afraid, of course, but despite the fear, a man died in prison and we are here,” said Maxim, a 37-year-old doctor.

“It’s the least we can do,” he continued.

The report notes that foreign diplomats attended the funeral — including the ambassadors of the United States, France, and Germany. When some of us speak of “democratic solidarity” — a solidarity with individuals and peoples under siege or under dictatorship — this is the kind of thing we mean.

More quoting:

A masked officer at the entrance filmed people as they entered.

Outside the church, people chanted slogans like “Lyosha, we are with you,” “Freedom for political prisoners,” “Russia will be free,” and “Russia without Putin.”

That is interesting: “Russia without Putin.” Some years ago, one of Putin’s apparatchiks, Vyacheslav Volodin, said, “There is no Russia without Putin.” Vladimir Kara-Murza, when he heard this, had an indignant response — a response he gave to me personally and to the public, in speeches: “That is probably the most insulting thing I have ever heard said about my country.”

Today, Kara-Murza is a political prisoner, kept in isolation, as Navalny was.

A report in the Wall Street Journal tells us,

The risk of attending the funeral was real. At least 400 people were arrested across Russia for laying flowers in memory of Navalny after news of his death emerged on Feb. 16 . . .

Incredibly brave people, these Russians. I admire them no end.

Here is a word from Navalny’s widow, Yulia:

And a word from their daughter, Dasha:

The below makes me think of something I heard Bill Buckley say a time or two: “Neatly formulated”:

Nikki Haley noticed that same woman, that same comment:

A headline from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty reads, “Prosecutors Seek Harsher Sentence for Jailed Former Leader of Navalny’s Team.” (Article here.) The woman in question is Lilia Chanysheva — for whom, spare a thought.

Like the Moscow Times, Meduza is a Russian news organization in exile. Today, a headline from Meduza reads, “Russian authorities using video footage to identify and arrest people who attended Navalny’s funeral.” The article begins,

Police in Moscow have begun arresting people who attended Alexey Navalny’s funeral on March 1, according to the human rights project OVD-Info.

Several of the arrestees were either filmed by surveillance cameras at the event or appeared in footage that was posted online. . . .

Commenting on the arrests, OVD-Info spokesman Dmitry Anisimov told journalists from the news site Agentstvo that Moscow’s facial recognition system allows the authorities to “trace the path of every individual right up to their door.”

Putin and his men have re-Sovietized Russia. They have turned it into a terror-state, a fear society (to borrow Natan Sharansky’s phrase). I am in awe of people who stand up to this nasty and murderous state — and of their equivalents in dictatorships all over the world.