Supporters of the leader of Russia’s political opposition, Alexei Navalny, showed up to memorials across the world Friday to mourn his reported death.
Russian prison authorities said Friday that Navalny, 47, had died while in prison at a penal colony north of the Arctic Circle, where he was serving a 19-year sentence.
Supporters of Navalny showed up to memorials with signs reading “Putin is a killer,” “We will not forgive,” “Homeland kills,” “do not give up,” and “Putin murderer.”
The U.S. president put the blame for the reported death squarely on Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has previously dismissed Navalny and rarely named him in speeches, sometimes referring to him instead as “that person” or a similar phrase.
“There is no doubt that the death of Navalny was a consequence of something Putin and his thugs did,” Biden said Friday.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also blamed Putin for the reported death, saying Friday that the apparent death shows “the extent to which Putin will crack down on anyone who is fighting for freedom for the Russian people.”
“There is no question that Alexei Navalny is dead because he stood up to Putin, he stood up to the Kremlin,” Trudeau said.
About 30 people were detained in St. Petersburg, according to local media, and more than a dozen were detained near a Moscow memorial to political prisoners, according to the OVD-Info monitoring group. The group said arrests also happened in several other cities.
The Russian embassy in Washington, D.C., was sprayed with a red liquid that resembled blood.
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Navalny had been jailed since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recovering in Germany from a nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin.
Navalny had gained traction as a vocal opponent of Putin, calling his United Russia party one of “crooks and thieves.”
He worked to expose corruption in Russia and the waste of public money.
Hours after his death was reported, Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, spoke at a security conference in Germany.
She said that if Navalny were in her place, he wouldn’t cancel, so she decided to carry on with her appearance. She said that she was unsure if she could believe the news of his death since it came from Russian sources.
“But if this is true, I want Putin and everyone around Putin, Putin’s friends, his government to know that they will bear responsibility for what they did to our country, to my family and to my husband. And this day will come very soon,” Navalnaya said.
Many saw Navalny as a sign of hope of taking back the country from Putin’s leadership, who has tightened his grip on Russia even further since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
“It’s hard for me to express my emotions, because I’m really shaken,” supporter Natalia Morozov told Reuters in Paris.
“Navalny was, at least for us, a glimmer of hope, and now we no longer have hope for the beautiful Russia of the future. Now, we no longer have the hope, this hope has been killed by Putin, like all the other hopes of our lives.”
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