Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, 47, died in prison on Friday, eliciting expressions of sympathy from around the world as well as criticism of Vladimir Putin.
Navalny has been an ardent anti-Putin activist for more than 20 years, organizing street demonstrations and accusing Putin and other Kremlin officials of corruption. He was arrested after returning to Russia in 2021 and eventually transferred to a penal colony, CNN reported. He was incarcerated over charges of political extremism.
A spokesperson for Navalny claimed the anti-government activist was murdered, according to Fox News.
“What has happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality. No one should be fooled — not in Russia, not at home, not anywhere in the world. Putin does not only target [the] citizens of other countries, as we’ve seen what’s going on in Ukraine right now, he also inflicts terrible crimes on his own people,” Biden said in a statement.
“And as people across Russia and around the world are mourning Navalny today because he was so many things that Putin was not: He was brave. He was principled. He was dedicated to building a Russia where the rule of law existed and … applied to everybody. Navalny believed in that Russia. … He knew it was a cause worth fighting for and, obviously, even dying for,” the president added.
Russian nationals living abroad have purportedly been rallying in various cities, expressing their sympathy for Navalny’s family and blaming his death on Putin.
“If this is true, then no matter the formal cause, the responsibility for the premature death is Vladimir Putin personally, who first gave the green light to the poisoning of Alexei and then put him in prison,” said Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an exiled Russia businessman and political opponent of Putin’s, according to the Associated Press.
Navalny had previously been poisoned with a Soviet-era nerve agent. It was believed that Putin and Russian intelligence agents had orchestrated the poisoning.
Russian officials said that a cause of death was “being established,” per the Associated Press.
