MADRID.- The Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, stated this Friday that “Russia is responsible” for the death of the opponent Alexei Navalni, who was serving a prison sentence in a prison in the Russian Arctic.
“For more than a decade, the Russian Government, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, tried, poisoned and imprisoned Navalny and now announce his death,” Blinken told journalists from the German city of Munich, as reported by the American television network CNN. “We will talk to many other countries concerned about Navalni, especially if the information turns out to be true.”
“If this information is accurate, our condolences are with his wife and family,” Blinken said, adding that “his death in a Russian prison and the fixation and fear it caused for a single man underscore the weakness and rot at the heart.” of the system that Putin has built.
In this line, US Vice President Kamala Harris He said that Navalni’s death “is terrible news.” “We are working to confirm it. If confirmed, it would be a new sign of Putin’s brutality. Regardless of the story they tell, we must be clear: Russia is responsible,” he stressed.
Shortly before, the spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zajarova, had attacked international criticism after Navalny’s death. “The immediate reaction of NATO leaders to Navalny’s death in the form of direct accusations against Russia explains itself. There is no forensic autopsy yet, but the West’s conclusions are already prepared,” he said.
NATO responds
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg expressed this Friday his “deep sadness and concern” over the news about the death of the influential Russian opponent Alexei Navalny in prison, ensuring that Russia has “serious questions to answer” about this case.
“All the facts have to be clarified and Russia has serious questions to answer. “Navalny was a strong voice for democracy and freedom for many years and allies had long called for his release,” stated the political head of NATO in statements from Munich, where he is participating in the security conference.
Stoltenberg stressed that the alliance is “committed” to supporting those who “believe in democracy and freedom, as Navalny had done for years” in Russia.
For his part, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stressed that Navalny “has probably now paid with his life for the courage” he showed in his actions.
Who is Alexei Navalny?
Alexei Navalny is the strongest opponent of Vladimir Putin’s government. With The 47-year-old was on Russia’s list of individuals and organizations involved in terrorist or extremist activists. He was detained in January 2021 when he returned to Moscow from Berlin, where he had been recovering from a poisoning that he and Western governments attributed to the security of the Russian president.
In August 2023, a Moscow court sentenced him to 19 years in prison for extremism., a sentence that had to be served under a special regime. At the beginning of January, Navalny was placed in solitary confinement after being transferred from jail to a prison in Yamalia-Nenetsia, amid complaints from those around him that he had been missing for almost three weeks after he did not appear at successive hearings. judicial.
Source: With information from EUROPA PRESS/AP/AFP
