Russian ambassadors summoned as Alexei Navalny’s body may be kept for weeks
- Germany, Sweden, Finland and Baltic States were among nations to summon Russian ambassadors for urgent talks
- Alexei Navalny’s unexpected death at the age of 47 at an Arctic penal colony has generated international outrage
Russian ambassadors were summoned across Europe on Monday to answer questions over the death of leading opposition dissident Alexei Navalny, as the Kremlin cracked down on mourners and continued to keep his body under wraps.
The European Union plans further sanctions against President Vladimir Putin’s regime and the United States is also considering adding to the plethora of measures already taken against Russia since its invasion of Ukraine two years ago.
Russian authorities, which have yet to release Navalny’s body or produce an autopsy report since his death in prison on Friday, have detained people laying flowers or otherwise commemorating the opposition figure.
In St Petersburg more than 199 people were ordered either detained or fined and 154 were placed in a holding cell, most for several days. There have been more than 400 arrests in more than 30 cities across the country, civil rights activists said.
A spokeswoman for the German Foreign Office said the politically motivated proceedings against Navalny and numerous other critics of the Russian government, as well as inhumane prison conditions, show how brutally the country acts against dissidents.