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The widow of Russian opposition leader\u00a0Alexei Navalny<\/a>\u00a0vowed on Monday to continue his fight against the Kremlin, while authorities denied his mother access to a morgue where his body is believed to be held after his death last week in an Arctic penal colony.<\/p>\n With her voice cracking at times in a video posted on social media, Yulia Navalnaya accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of killing her husband in the remote prison and alleged that officials\u2019 refusal to hand over the body to her mother-in-law was part of a cover-up.<\/p>\n Russian authorities said that the cause of Navalny\u2019s death Friday at age 47 is still unknown \u2014 and the results of any investigation are likely to be questioned abroad. Many Western leaders have already said they\u00a0hold Putin<\/a>\u00a0responsible for the death.<\/p>\n Navalny\u2019s death has deprived the\u00a0Russian opposition<\/a>\u00a0of its\u00a0most well-known and inspiring politician<\/a>\u00a0less than a month before an election that is all but certain to give Putin\u00a0another six years in power<\/a>. It dealt a devastating blow to many Russians, who had seen Navalny as a rare hope for political change amid Putin\u2019s\u00a0unrelenting crackdown on the opposition<\/a>.<\/p>\n Navalny had\u00a0been imprisoned since January 2021<\/a>, when he returned to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from a nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. He received\u00a0three prison terms<\/a>\u00a0since his arrest, on a number of charges he has rejected as politically motivated.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are cowardly and meanly hiding his body, refusing to give it to his mother and lying miserably while waiting for the trace of\u201d poison to disappear, Navalnaya said, suggesting her husband might have been killed with a Novichok-style nerve agent.<\/p>\n She urged Russians to rally behind her \u201cto share not only the grief and endless pain that has enveloped and gripped us, but also my rage.\u201d<\/p>\n She continued: \u201cThe main thing that we can do for Alexei and ourselves is to keep fighting. \u2026 We all need to get together in one strong fist and strike that mad regime.\u201d<\/p>\n On Monday, Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny\u2019s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said Navalny\u2019s body would not be given to his mother for 14 days while a chemical examination of it takes place, according to a Russian investigator.<\/p>\n Navalny spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said the Investigative Committee, the country\u2019s top criminal investigation agency, informed\u00a0Lyudmila Navalnaya<\/a>\u00a0that the official probe into the death had been extended. \u201cThey lie, buy time for themselves and do not even hide it,\u201d Yarmysh posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.<\/p>\n With authorities offering no more information on the death after the brief initial statement, many Russians speculated about what might have happened to Navalny. Independent Russian outlets released reports attempting to shed light on his death. Some called into question the official narrative \u2014 but their reports were not possible to verify.<\/p>\n In Brussels on Monday, Navalny\u2019s widow met with European Union foreign ministers and other officials. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc was mulling sanctions against Russia and he also called for an independent international investigation into the causes of Navalny\u2019s death.<\/p>\n He said responsibility for Navalny\u2019s death lies with \u201cPutin himself, but we can go down to the institutional structure of the penitentiary system in Russia,\u201d to impose asset freezes and travel bans.<\/p>\n President Joe Biden said Monday his administration is also considering imposing additional sanctions on Russia.<\/p>\n Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski described Navalnaya as \u201cvery dignified, very composed,\u201d and urged his EU counterparts to act on Navalnaya\u2019s request that the bloc impose sanctions on more of Putin\u2019s backers, beyond the oligarchs and other senior Russian officials already being targeted.<\/p>\n Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov slammed the accusations from Western leaders as \u201cboorish\u201d and \u201cinadmissible.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThose statements can\u2019t do any harm to the head of our state, but they certainly aren\u2019t becoming for those who make them,\u201d Peskov said in a call with reporters.<\/p>\n Yarmysh said that Navalny\u2019s 69-year-old mother and his lawyers were not allowed into the morgue in Salekhard, the capital of the Arctic Yamalo-Nenets region, on Monday morning. The staff didn\u2019t answer when they asked if the body was there, Yarmysh said.<\/p>\n Asked when Navalny\u2019s body could be handed over to his family, Peskov responded that the Kremlin was not involved in those proceedings, adding that the official probe was continuing in line with the law.<\/p>\n Observers said that the law allows authorities to keep the body for a long time if the investigation is ongoing and block any requests for an independent forensic study.<\/p>\n Navalny\u2019s ally Ivan Zhdanov denounced the Russian authorities as \u201clackeys and liars.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s clear what they are doing now \u2014 covering up the traces of their crime,\u201d he wrote Monday.<\/p>\n Since Navalny\u2019s death, nearly 400 people\u00a0have been detained<\/a>\u00a0by police in Russia as they streamed to ad-hoc memorials and monuments to victims of political repression with flowers and candles to pay tribute to Navalny, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political arrests. The U.S. and British ambassadors also mourned Navalny\u2019s death at a memorial in Moscow.<\/p>\n Authorities cordoned off some of the memorials across the country and were removing flowers at night, but they kept appearing.<\/p>\n Over 50,000 people have submitted requests to the Russian government asking for Navalny\u2019s remains to be handed over to his relatives, OVD-Info said.<\/p>\n Russia\u2019s Federal Penitentiary Service reported that Navalny felt sick after a walk Friday and became unconscious at the penal colony where he was being held. An ambulance arrived, but he couldn\u2019t be revived, the service said.<\/p>\n After the last verdict that handed him a 19-year term, Navalny said he understood he was \u201cserving a life sentence, which is measured by the length of my life or the length of life of this regime.\u201d<\/p>\n In her video statement, Navalnaya said: \u201cBy killing Alexei, Putin killed half of me, half of my heart and half of my soul.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut I still have the other half, and it tells me that I have no right to give up. I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny,\u201d she declared.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nSubscribe to the new Fortune CEO Weekly Europe newsletter to get corner office insights on the biggest business stories in Europe. Sign up<\/a> for free.<\/div>\n