The government of Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely refusing to release the body of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, who died suspiciously in prison on February 16, because it fears a massive outpouring of grief and support just ahead of the March presidential election, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a leading Russian opposition figure, said.

“There could be large-scale confrontations in Moscow,” the exiled former oil tycoon said in an interview with Current Time, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.

“The authorities do not want people to understand how many of them oppose Putin. The main task of Putin’s propaganda is to convince people that if they are against Putin, they are on the margins…. If people see that there are really a lot of them…then the situation can change in seconds.”