Alexei Navalny’s mother has arrived at the brutal IK-3 Polar Wolf penal colony in Russia upon news of her son’s shock death on Friday.
Lyudmila Navalnaya was pictured travelling in a black car to the harsh Arctic camp where her son is believed to have died after suddenly collapsing on Friday.
A woman believed to be Navalnaya was seen wearing a protective mask and sunglasses as she visited the colony where her son had been imprisoned for only a matter of weeks since being moved from a penal colony east of Moscow.
It came as Volodymyr Zelensky issued a chilling warning to critics of Putin’s regime at the Munich Security Conference in Germany this morning.
‘Putin kills whoever he wants,’ the Ukrainian President said. ‘Be it an opposition leader or anyone else who appears as a target to him. He maintains power through corruption and violence.’
‘Putin has murdered another opposition leader,’ Zelensky said outright. The Kremlin has denied involvement in Navalny’s death.
A woman (L), believed to be Lyudmila Navalnaya, the mother of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, is accompanied into a car as she leaves the IK-3 penal colony
A woman wearing a protective mask and sunglasses, believed to be Lyudmila Navalnaya, leaves the IK-3 penal colony, February 17, 2024
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks at a conference in Munich on Saturday
Speaking at the Munich conference today, Zelensky spoke on the need to repel Putin’s advances east and depose him – as Russia prepares for its closely-watched presidential elections next month.
He warned Saturday that his country’s battle to repel Russian troops was being held back by a lack of long-range weapons and artillery shells.
READ MORE: Inside Alexei Navalny’s four years of hell: Timeline of Russian opposition leader’s battle against Vladimir Putin from Novichok poisoning to dying in prison
‘Keeping Ukraine in the artificial deficits of weapons, particularly in deficit of artillery and long-range capabilities, allows Putin to adapt to the current intensity of the war,’ he told the Munich Security Conference.
‘We have ruined the myth that Russian weapons are better than Western ones – that is why for the first time in Russian history Putin bowed to Iran and North Korea for help,’ he said.
‘Russia has only one specific military advantage at this time – namely the complete devaluation of human life. Constant Russian meat assaults prove this. International tolerance of the lack of rule of law in Russia since 1991 and Putin’s policy of controlled poverty has led to the effect that human life is worthless for Russian state.
Speaking ahead of the two-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Zelensky said: ‘[Putin] has just yesterday he tried to send us all a clear message as the Munich Security Conference opened, Putin murdered another opposition leader.
‘So please, let’s not fear Putin’s defeat and the destruction of his regime. Let’s instead work together to destroy what he stands for. It is his fate to lose, not the fate of the rules based world order to vanish.’
He told attendees: ‘Do not ask Ukraine when the war will end. Ask yourselves why Putin is still able to continue it.’
He went on: ‘Putin now openly justifies Hitler absolving him of responsibility of World War II and he makes the genocide of our people just the normal part of policy.’
‘After the murder of Alexei Navalny it is absolute to pursue Putin as the legitimate head of the Russian state. He is a thug who maintains power through corruption and violence
‘Putin only has two options ahead, to be in the dock in the Hauge or to be killed by one of his accomplices who are now killing for him.’
Alexei Navalny, the fiercest foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin was reported to have died in prison on Friday, according to Russia’s prison agency.
The Federal Prison Service said in a statement that Navalny, 47, felt unwell after a walk and ‘almost immediately lost consciousness’. Paramedics reportedly came to try to rehabilitate him without success.
There was no immediate confirmation of Navalny’s death from his team, his lawyer Leonid Solovyov telling Russian media he would not be commenting yet.
Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny and his wife Yulia Navalnaya in September 2020
Zelensky blamed Navalny’s death on Putin (pictured in Chelyabinsk, Russia, on Friday)
A car carrying Lyudmila Navalnaya, mother of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, arries to the prison colony in the town of Kharp on Saturday, February 17, 2024
The Ukrainian President said outright that Russia was responsible for the death of Navalny
Navalny, who was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of ‘extremism’, had only recently been moved from his former prison in the Vladimir region of central Russia to a grizzly ‘special regime’ penal colony above the Arctic Circle.
His allies, a brave minority in Russia fighting corruption, said at the time they feared for his life after he ‘disappeared’ in December to travel to the remote region notorious for its long and severe winters – just months before the closely-watched Russian presidential elections next month.