Russians Pay Last Respects To Human Rights Defender Lyudmila Alexeyeva
Alexeyeva, who died Saturday, was a longtime Kremlin critic who lived in exile for 16 years during the Soviet era. President Vladimir Putin tried to co-opt her legacy during her lifetime.
Russians from all walks of life turned out on a damp and slushy Tuesday morning in Moscow to pay their last respects to Lyudmila Mikhailovna Alexeyeva, a tireless defender of human rights and a contemporary of the Soviet dissidents Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Alexeyeva, who died Saturday at age 91 in a Moscow hospital, was one of the few public figures who could unify Russians across the political spectrum. Politicians from Russian President Vladimir Putin to his fiercest critic, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, expressed their condolences on the death of the longtime human rights campaigner, who spent 16 years in exile in the United States during the Soviet era.
"Thanks to the
