flowers were thrown to Navalny at the Russian Consulate

In Hamburg, they tried to destroy an improvised memorial to the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny. DW writes about this on Sunday, in particular, with reference to the story of a local resident, citizen of Russia Natalya Freudenberg.

According to the Russian woman, she came to lay flowers at the memorial opposite the Russian consulate. It has been closed since the beginning of 2024, but technical personnel remain in the building. As Freudenberg said, after she lit a candle and installed a portrait of Navalny, a man in a work uniform came out of the building with a large garbage bag and began to remove the flowers.

According to her, the Russian woman asked not to throw away the flowers and to give the package to her, and even tried to take the package, but the worker did not let go of it, but pulled it so that Freudenberg fell at some point. “He dragged me along the asphalt,” she claims. Also, according to her, an unknown person returned to the territory of the consulate general and threw a package with flowers into a garbage container.

Natalya Freudenberg contacted the police in connection with the incident. She complained about the injuries she received from the blow. The Russian woman says that she had a headache for a long time after the incident, she also bruised her knee and got bruises on her hand.

The reaction of the Russian official structures has not yet been given.

• Improvised memorials to the oppositionist from the day of his death, which the Russian authorities announced on February 16, appeared, among other things, at monuments to victims of political repressions and other iconic places in Russian cities, as well as at Russian diplomatic missions in different countries. In many Russian cities, police flowers were immediately removed. There are many cases of detention.