56 people arrested throughout Russia on the occasion of Navalni's funeral

This Friday, Russian security forces detained at least 56 people, including two minors, coinciding with the funeral in Moscow of the Russian opponent Alexei Navalny, who died on February 16 while in prison serving a sentence to about 30 years in prison for fraud and extremism.

The NGO OVD-Info, specialized in monitoring arrests, has indicated in a Telegram message that the arrests have taken place in the Russian capital, as well as in the cities of Novosibirsk, Voronezh, Nizhnevartovsk, Kazan, Tomsk, Zlatoust and Sochi , among other.

Thus, the organization has indicated that among those detained is a journalist and has stated that many of them have been arrested when they tried to travel from other provinces of the country to Moscow to attend the funeral, which lasted only 20 minutes after the Religious authorities would be "pressured" to shorten the duration, according to activists and followers of Navalni.

Among those detained is Pavel Sichev, advisor to the Russian opposition candidate Boris Nadezhdin, critical of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and whose candidacy for the March presidential elections has been rejected by the Electoral Commission in what many consider a measure by the authorities to clear the President Vladimir Putin's path to re-election.

In the city of Novosibirsk, 18 people have been arrested after laying flowers during a vigil, according to information from the newspaper 'The Moscow Times'. Among them is the deputy mayor, Anton Kartavin. Likewise, ten other people have been arrested in Yekaterinburg, also for laying flowers in memory of the Russian opponent.

"The formal reason for these arrests could be participation in previous events in memory of the politician, but most of these arrests seek to intimidate activists and followers of Navalni," OVD-Info has previously stated.