After Alexei Navalny's mother received the death certificate from prison officials on Saturday, the team of the late Russian opposition leader accused President Vladimir Putin of his murder.

"Navalny's relatives and lawyer received official confirmation about Alexei's death. Putin killed him," wrote Kira Yarmysh, spokesperson for the opposition, on her social media account.

Yarmysh specified that Navalny died at 2:17 PM local time, two hours before prison services publicly announced it.

"Prison officials reported that Navalny's body is in Salehard. Investigators from the Investigative Committee took him away. Now, they are conducting 'examinations,'" she said.

The spokesperson added, "We demand that Alexei Navalny's body be immediately handed over to his family."

Navalny's mother, Liudmila Navalnaya, arrived this morning at the Arctic prison where her son died suddenly on Friday, although his fellow activists and Western foreign ministries accuse the Kremlin of murder.

Odessa Rae, an American producer of the Oscar-winning documentary about Navalny, remembers her friend Alexei Navalny, who passed away on Friday.

"We always knew he was a threat, but for this to actually happen right now is very unexpected. Many people ask why Alexei felt he had to return to Russia, because they don't understand his circumstances or timing. For him, sitting in Germany would have been death itself, because all Russian opposition leaders, like Khodorkovsky, who tried to operate from outside of Russia, became irrelevant in Russia. Russians would say, 'How dare you speak to us from there? Why should we listen to you sitting comfortably in Germany?'

Alexei's purpose in life was to change that country. He would say, 'Odessa, I never left,' because he was put on a plane to Germany when he was in a coma. He never intended to leave Russia because he knew doing so would be the death of his purpose. So he had no choice but to return to Russia and continue his work.

Alexei made his decision before the war in Ukraine broke out, and at that time we were still unsure how far Putin would actually go. Of course, we knew he had already tried to kill Alexei once. Staying in Germany, though it was probably discussed, was not an option. Alexei Navalny had a powerful mission to fulfill and nothing was going to stop him.

I spent quite a bit of time with Alexei during Covid making the documentary in the Black Forest, Germany. I don't know if for him it was all a love for the homeland that I don't fully understand, but he did love the Russian people and desired freedom and the rule of law.

He was very aware that Putin was taking more liberties and believed in a better future for his country. He spoke out loud and clear against the war in Ukraine and believed Ukraine should be immediately returned to its 1991 borders. It was one of the reasons he was continuously put in solitary confinement."