File photo: Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny attends a rally to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov and protest against the country’s constitutional reforms in Moscow, Russia, on February 29, 2020.Reuters/Shamil Zhumatov/File photo
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — World leaders and Russian opposition activists on Friday blamed President Vladimir Putin and his government for the reported death of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Didn’t waste any time.
“It is clear that he was murdered by President Putin,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who is in Berlin seeking help for his country in the fight against Russian aggression.
“Putin doesn’t care who dies. He just wants to maintain his position. That’s why he shouldn’t get hung up on anything. Putin will lose everything and take responsibility for his actions. Zelenskiy added.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who briefly took in Navalny after he was poisoned with a nerve agent in 2020, said the Kremlin critic’s death revealed “what kind of regime this is.”
“He has probably now paid for this courage with his life,” Scholz said, standing next to Zelenskiy. The German leader said he met Mr. Navalny in Berlin during his convalescence.
Navalny, 47, was serving a 19-year prison sentence for extremism in a remote penal colony high above the Arctic Circle at the time of his death. He has been in prison since his return from Germany in January 2021, serving a variety of charges that he rejected as a politically motivated effort to preserve his life sentence.
Latvian President Edgars Rinkevičis said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that Navalny was “brutally murdered by the Kremlin.” “That’s true and what you need to know about the nature of Russia’s current regime.”
Navalny’s officials stressed that reports from Russian prison officials did not provide independent confirmation of his death. His close friend Ivan Zhdanov said authorities “must notify the next of kin” within 24 hours “if it’s true.”
“I have not received any notification,” he said on X (formerly Twitter). “No further comment.”
Voices of sympathy for Navalny’s family and anger at the Kremlin, which has stepped up its unprecedented crackdown on opposition in recent years, poured in from around the world.
“If this is true, whatever the formal causes, the responsibility for his untimely death lies personally with Vladimir Putin, who first gave the green light for Alexei’s poisoning and then imprisoned him,” said exiled Russian businessman Mikhail Khodor. Kofsky said. the exiled rebel-turned-rebel said in an online statement.
Other Russian opposition activists echoed his views.
Opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov said on social media: “If confirmed, Alexei’s death is murder. It was orchestrated by President Putin.” “Even if Alexei died of ‘natural’ causes, it was triggered by his poisoning and further torture in prison.”
Garry Kasparov, a former world chess champion turned opposition activist, said: “Putin tried unsuccessfully to poison Navalny quickly and secretly, but now he is slowly making his public appearance in prison.” I killed him,” he said.
“He was killed for exposing President Putin and his mafia as fraudsters and thieves,” Kasparov, who lives abroad, wrote to X.
“Mr. Navalny was murdered in prison,” said Pyotr Verzilov, a prominent member of the Russian protest group Pussy Riot. “We will definitely take revenge and destroy this regime,” Verzilov added in a post on X.
Western officials also condemned Putin and his government.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Navalny’s death showed that “Putin is afraid of nothing except dissent from his own people.”
She called it a “harsh reminder of what President Putin and his regime are all about,” and said it should provide further impetus to “unite in the fight to protect the freedom and security of those who dare to stand up to dictatorship.” added.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Russia had questions to answer whether the reports were true.
“What we have seen is that Russia has become an increasingly authoritarian power and has been cracking down on dissent for many years,” Stoltenberg said.
He said Navalny “is in prison, which makes it very important for Russia to answer all future questions about the cause of death.”
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told NPR that if Navalny were confirmed dead, “it would be a terrible tragedy, given the Russian government’s long and sordid history of harming its adversaries.” “That raises real and obvious questions about what happened here.”