Russian opposition leader buried as public kept at arm’s length

The body of Alexei Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most formidable critic, was lowered into the ground to the sounds of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” as thousands of his supporters outside a cemetery chanted to be allowed in to pay their respects. Under the supervision of busloads of riot police, Navalny’s body was whisked into a church for a brief ceremony before being taken for burial. The opposition leader died suddenly at the age of 47 in the Polar Wolf prison colony in northern Russia — a death that his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, and other supporters have described as “murder” but which Russian authorities attributed to “natural causes.”

Crowds of mourners, including opposition figures, chanted “We are not afraid! Don’t be afraid!” as Navalny’s coffin arrived at the church. Thousands waited behind barriers in hopes of laying flowers on the coffin, but the public was not able to enter the church.