Russia must answer all serious questions about the circumstances of the death of the politician.
In the death of 47-year-old Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died suddenly on Friday, February 16, in a colony in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug of the Russian Federation, Western leaders blame the regime of President Putin.
The first among foreign heads of state to react to Navalny’s death was Latvian President Edgar Rinkevich.
“Whatever you think about Alexei Navalny as a politician, he was brutally killed by the Kremlin. This is a fact and it says a lot about the real nature of the current regime in Russia,” Rinkevich wrote on the social network X.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the death of the Russian opposition leader the greatest tragedy.
“As the most ardent defender of Russian democracy, Alexey Navalny has demonstrated incredible courage throughout his life,” says his post on the social network X.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that Navalny “paid with his life for the courage to return to Russia.”
The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, called Navalny's death “a grim reminder of what Putin and his regime represent.” She called for unity in the fight for the freedom and safety of those who dare to oppose autocracy.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that all the facts regarding Navalny's death need to be established, and Russia “must answer all serious questions about the circumstances of his death.”
“The immediate reaction of the leaders of NATO countries to Navalny's death in the form of direct accusations against Russia is self-exposing. There is no forensic examination yet, but the conclusions of the West are already ready,” wrote the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova in a telegram.
The cause of death of Alexei Navalny is still unknown.
The politician's lawyer Leonid Solovyov visited the prisoner on Wednesday, February 14, and then Navalny was in good health. Telegram channel SOTAvision publishes yesterday’s video of Alexei Navalny at a meeting of the Kovrovsky court via video link from the colony. In the footage, the prisoner looks healthy and jokes.
The public monitoring commission also reported that there were no health complaints from Navalny.
The pro-Kremlin TV channel RT reported that Navalny's blood clot had broken off.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Putin is aware of the incident.
How Putin fought Navalny
Navalny was poisoned in Russia in 2020. He was evacuated to Germany, where it was confirmed that he had been poisoned with Novichok, a poisonous substance allegedly used by Russian intelligence services to eliminate undesirables.
In January 2021, Navalny returned to Russia after treatment and was immediately arrested at the airport.
Alexey Navalny was convicted in a fraud case, as well as on a number of other charges, including for creating an extremist organization, which in Russia is recognized, in particular, as his Anti-Corruption Foundation. < /p>
In a colony in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Navalny served 19 years in a special regime colony. The oppositionist called his persecution political; human rights activists and representatives of Western countries share the same opinion.
On February 14, it became known that Navalny was sent to a punishment cell for the 27th time during his imprisonment. Human rights activist Eva Merkacheva suggested that the death could have resulted in the politician being kept in a punishment cell, where he spent more than 300 days.
Recall that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky commented on the death of Alexei Navalny in a Russian colony. In his opinion, the oppositionist was killed by dictator Putin.
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