Joe Biden met with Navalny’s widow and daughter in California on Thursday.
San Francisco:
President Joe Biden met privately in California on Thursday with the widow and daughter of Kremlin opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in a Russian prison last week, the White House said.
Biden met with Yulia and Dasha Navalnaya in San Francisco to “express my heartfelt condolences for their terrible loss,” a statement said, adding that Biden on Friday reiterated his support for the Announcement of new sanctions on Russia.
During the meeting, “the president expressed his admiration for Alexei Navalny’s extraordinary courage and his legacy of fighting corruption and fighting for a free and democratic Russia,” the statement said.
Biden “stressed that Alexei’s legacy will continue through people in Russia and around the world mourning his death and fighting for freedom, democracy and human rights.”
Russian authorities said on February 16 that 47-year-old Navalny died suddenly in custody.
As one of the last remaining opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Navalny has inspired mass protests and won popular support through a series of investigations into state corruption.
He was poisoned with a Soviet-era nerve agent in 2020 and was jailed in 2021 after returning to Russia after a period of treatment in Germany.
He was sentenced to 19 years in prison on extremism charges and sent to IK-3, a harsh penal colony beyond the Arctic Circle known as the “Polar Wolf.”
Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, said Thursday that authorities were trying to force her to hold a secret funeral.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that Russian authorities should return the activist’s body to his mother so she can “properly commemorate … her son’s bravery, courage and service.”
Earlier, the U.S. government marked the upcoming second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of pro-Western Ukraine by charging a series of wealthy Russians with helping to reduce “illicit financial flows that fueled Moscow’s war.”
Sanctions specifically related to Navalny’s death are due to be announced on Friday.
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