Navalny’s family and allies have accused Putin of having the 47-year-old Putin rival killed and then holding his body to both hide his cause of death and out of fear that his funeral would draw large crowds.

The Kremlin denied having anything to do with Navalny’s death with the prison service saying he died of "sudden death syndrome"

Before his death Navalny was poisoned by alleged Russian FSB agents with Novichok, a Soviet era toxin that is very fatal. Upon his treatment in Germany, he didn't need to warnings from the West and returned back to Russia, hoping to continue his message of 'freedom' from the Putin regime. Upon his arrival in Moscow he was arrested.

Navalny, Putin’s most prominent political opponent, died on February 16 behind bars in a penal colony above the Arctic circle. The Russian prison service said he “felt unwell after a walk” and “almost immediately” lost consciousness.

He had been sentenced to 19 years in prison in August after being found guilty of creating an extremist community and other crimes, adding to the 11-and-a-half years to which he had previously been sentenced. Navalny had dismissed the charges against him as politically motivated.

“Murder wasn’t enough for Putin. Now his body is being held hostage,” Navalnaya said. “You mock the remains of the dead. Nothing more demonic can be imagined. You are breaking every law, both human and God’s.”

His death came just weeks before Russia’s presidential election scheduled for March 17, at which Putin is expected to sweep to a fifth term in office, extending his rule until at least 2030.

With Navalny’s wife and team exiled from Russia, the duty of collecting his body and planning a funeral has fallen to his mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya. The elder Navalnaya has been in Salekhard, the Siberian town where Navalny’s body is being kept in a morgue, shortly after her son’s death.

In her video published Saturday, Yulia Navalnaya held Putin responsible for the Russian state’s decision to hold Navalny’s body and said his actions cut against Putin's carefully crafted image as a devout Orthodox Christian protecting both the faith and the state from the infiltration of Western values.

Putin, who has built a powerful symbolic and political alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church, has long attacked Western liberalism and accused the West of “pure satanism” in a September 2022 speech.

“Putin pretends to be a VERY religious man. He kisses icons and touches the relics of Saint Nicholas,” Navalnaya said. “Faith is not about kissing an icon. Faith is about goodness, about mercy, about salvation.”