Opposition leader in jail

Russia, dissident Alexei Navalny dead in prison. Biden: Putin responsible

Alexei Navalny, the leading opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has died at the age of 47. The news was released by the penitentiary where he was serving his 19-year sentence

16 February 2024

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Russia's opposition leader Alexei Navalny , 47, died in the Arctic prison colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence, according to a statement released by Russia's Federal Prison Service. "Navalny felt ill after the walk, losing consciousness almost immediately. Medical personnel arrived immediately and an ambulance was called. Resuscitation measures were performed, which were unsuccessful. The paramedics confirmed the death of the convict. The cause of death is being ascertained,' the statement read. The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, claims that Putin was informed of Navalny's death, but did not know the cause of death. The Russian Investigative Committee of the Yamalo-Nenets Arctic region, where Navalny was detained, announced that it had opened an investigation into the death of the opponent. "According to the procedure established by law, a series of investigative and operational measures are being carried out to establish all the circumstances of the incident," a statement from the committee read. Russia Today TV, quoting its source, reports that Navalny reportedly died from "a blood clot", a thrombosis.

According to reports on social media and some news channels, numerous people took to the streets in various locations in Russia, and the police intervened and made arrests.

Shortly after 6pm Italian time, US President Joe Biden spoke and said that 'Putin is responsible for Navalny's death'. "I am not surprised and at the same time I am shocked by the news of Alexei Navalny's death," Biden said. "We don't know exactly what happened but there is no doubt that it is a consequence of something Putin and his henchmen did." Alexiei Navalny was, Biden continued, "a powerful voice of truth," a "courageous" man and icon "of the fight against corruption and violence." Again: 'We are considering a range of options,' he said in response to a question about possible new sanctions against Russia.

Navalny's lawyer, Leonid Solovyov, said he last visited him in prison on Wednesday, 14 February, and that the opponent was fine. The Meduza website reported that. "At the request of Alexey Navalny's family, I comment absolutely nothing. We are currently investigating," he added.

Navalny's wife, Julija Borisovna, spoke from the podium of the Munich Security Conference, saying among other things that if the news of her husband's death was true, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials should know that 'they will be punished' for what they have done. After questioning whether 'we should believe this terrible news that we only receive from official media', an expression of 'Putin and his government' who 'constantly lie', Yulia Borisovna Navalnaya said: 'But if it is the truth, I would like Putin and all his staff, all those around him, his government, his friends to know that they will be punished for what they have done to our country, to my family and to my husband'. Yulia Navalnaya added that she wanted them to know that 'they will be brought to justice' and that 'this will happen soon'. "I wish," she added, "that the whole international community, all people in the world, would unite and fight against this evil" against "this horrible regime in Russia today."

Kira Yarmysh, Alexei Navalny's spokeswoman, said she still had no direct news about the death of the opponent. "The Yamalo-Nenets district federal prison service," Yarmysh wrote on X, "is spreading news about Alexei Navalny's death in the IK-3 detention colony. We still have no confirmation of this. Alexei's lawyer is flying to Kharp (a town near the detention centre, ed.). As soon as we have any information, we will report it."

Navalny, storia per immagini del più grande oppositore a Putin
Photogallery22 foto

"The Iamal prison decided to break Vladimir's record in order to flatter and please the Moscow authorities. They just gave me 15 days in a punishment cell. That is, this is the fourth punishment cell in less than 2 months that I'm with them," is Alexei Navalny's last message on the X platform dated 14 February at 3pm, although speaking three days ago by videoconference from abroad with a group of European diplomats in Moscow, Alexei Navalny's right-hand man, Leonid Volkov, had said that the opponent was "in surprisingly good psychophysical condition" and that he did not fear for his life. "The immediate reaction of Nato leaders to Navalny's death, in the form of accusations directed against Russia," shows the nature of these countries, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram. "There is no forensic examination yet, but the West's conclusions are ready," the spokeswoman adds.

E ora Khodorkovskij invita i russi a scrivere Navalny sulla scheda

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also spoke about Navalny today at a press conference with Ukrainian President Zelensky in Berlin. Scholz had met Navalny in the German capital after the assassination attempt on the Russian dissident and described him as a very brave man. Now 'he has probably paid for this courage with his life' and it is a 'terrible' sign of what Russia is, which 'has long since not been a democracy, but a regime'.

"Whatever your thoughts on Alexey Navalny as a politician, he has just been brutally murdered by the Kremlin. This is a fact and something you should know about the true nature of the current Russian regime. My condolences to his family and friends,' the President of Latvia Edgars Rinkevics wrote in a tweet.

Whatever your thoughts about Alexey @Navalny as the politician, he was just brutally murdered by the Kremlin. That's a fact and that is something one should know about the true nature of Russia's current regime. My condolences to the family and friends.
— Edgars Rinkēvičs (@edgarsrinkevics) February 16, 2024

Russian Parliament (Duma) spokesman Vyacheslav Volodin said that Western leaders benefit from Alexei Navalny's death because they were "losing" the battle in Ukraine. Western leaders 'who made a large number of failed decisions and cling to their positions benefit from his death', Volodin said, without adding further arguments.

In a clip from Daniel Rohr's 2022film 'Navalny', a documentary revolving around the Russian opposition leader and the events surrounding his poisoning, produced by HBO Max and CNN Films, Navalny says: 'I have to tell you something: you are not allowed to give up. If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong. We must use this power'. Images that are going viral in these hours. 'We must not give up: we must remember that we have great strength that has been oppressed by these bad people. We don't realise how strong we are right now. The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. So,' Navalny concludes, 'do not be passive.

"Navalny was slowly murdered by Vladimir Putin. I am sure that the foreign ministers will make some kind of statement on Monday". This was stated by a high EU official ahead of Monday's Foreign Council. "They will refer to the fact that it was again a person we really admire and appreciate, who we follow very closely for years, who was fighting when he was poisoned. He was then treated in Germany but went back because he wanted to be in Russia, to continue his democratic struggle and in the end he was slowly killed in prison," he pointed out.