President Joe Biden met on Feb. 22 with the widow and daughter of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died recently in a prison in the Arctic. The White House stated that the meeting took place in San Francisco, where the president is holding campaign events for his reelection.
“President Biden met with Yulia and Dasha Navalnaya today in San Francisco to express his heartfelt condolences for their terrible loss following the death of Aleksey Navalny in a Russian prison,” the White House stated.
“The President expressed his admiration for Aleksey Navalny’s extraordinary courage and his legacy of fighting against corruption and for a free and democratic Russia in which the rule of law applies equally to everyone.”
President Biden repeatedly condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin for being responsible for Mr. Navalny’s death.
“Russian authorities are going to tell their own story. Make no mistake. Putin is responsible for Alexei Navalny’s death,” President Biden told reporters last week following Mr. Navalny’s death.
“There is no doubt that the death of Navalny was a consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”
Mr. Navalny, 47, was a Russian opposition activist who has been the most prominent critic of Mr. Putin’s government for the past decade. He collapsed and died in jail on Feb. 16, according to Russian officials.
Mr. Navalny had been incarcerated since January 2021, following his return to Moscow from Germany. He received three prison sentences totaling more than 30 years.
Russian authorities reported that Mr. Navalny felt unwell after a walk at the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp, one of 700 labor camps currently operating in Russia. It’s located about 1,900 kilometers (1,181 miles) northeast of Moscow in the Arctic Circle. He lost consciousness almost immediately, the authorities reported.
“The President emphasized that Aleksey’s legacy will carry on through people across Russia and around the world mourning his loss and fighting for freedom, democracy, and human rights,” the White House said in the statement.
Mr. Navalny was married to Yulia Navalnaya, 47, who has been described as Russia’s “first lady” of the opposition. The couple had two children.
According to Reuters, Mr. Navalny’s last message was to his wife on Valentine’s Day.
“Baby, you and I have everything like in the song: cities between us, airfield take-off lights, blue blizzards and thousands of kilometres. But I feel that you are there every second, and I love you more and more,” Mr. Navalny wrote.
The United States is preparing to impose further sanctions on Russia over Mr. Navalny’s death.
“We are going to announce sanctions against Putin, who is responsible for his death, tomorrow,” President Biden told reporters in San Francisco. “We are not letting up.”
“We will have a crushing package of sanctions,” Victoria Nuland, undersecretary of state for political affairs, said on Feb. 22 during an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them.”
