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Post by Webster on Feb 16, 2024 22:05:50 GMT -5
(The Guardian) 11:18am Summary--The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has died in jail aged 47, the country’s prison service has said, in what supporters and western officials have called a political assassination attributable to Russia’s president Vladimir Putin. You can read our news story here. --Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, spoke at the Munich Security Conference to call on the international community to come together and punish “this horrific regime” in Russia, and Putin, who she said was personally responsible for her husband’s death. “If this is true, I want Putin and everyone around him to know that they will be held accountable for everything they did to our country, to my family. And this day will happen very soon,” she said. --A wave of international outrage greeted the news, with the UK and US leading the condemnation. The UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, said Russia, under Putin, “fabricated charges … poisoned him, sent him to an Arctic penal colony”. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, in Munich, said reports of Navalny’s death “underscore the weakness and rot at the heart” of the Putin regime. --Russia’s foreign ministry said the US should show restraint before accusing the country of Navalny’s death. Moscow’s Tass news agency quoted the ministry as saying the US needed to wait for the results of the forensic medical examination.
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Post by Webster on Feb 16, 2024 22:07:00 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Impromptu vigils have been announced by pro-democracy Russian organizations across cities in Europe and the US. In Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, a crowd was seen holding candles or their mobile phone torches and shouting “Navalny, Navalny!” Footage on social media also showed people laying flowers next to a spontaneous memorial for Navalny in the Russian city of Kazan. In Moscow, the European Union’s ambassador to Russia, Roland Galharague, laid flowers at the Solovetsky Stone, a monument dedicated to the victims of political repressions.
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Post by Webster on Feb 16, 2024 22:24:48 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Vladimir Putin’s foes and critics have often met with violent deaths at the very peak of their conflicts with the Kremlin leader during his nearly quarter-century in power. Alexei Navalny’s death, which many foreign leaders and supporters say is murder, came after he was banished to an Arctic Circle prison, where he was regularly thrown in a punishment cell, exposed to the elements and significantly malnourished. Western officials including the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and vice-president, Kamala Harris, have directly blamed the Kremlin for his death. Putin’s other foes have been targeted in diverse ways: shootings, poisonings and even a plane crash. Many of the deaths are never solved and remain listed as accidents and suicides, leaving open the question of just how many of his enemies Putin has dispatched with over the years.
The European Union says it will do whatever it can to hold Russia, and its president, Vladimir Putin, accountable for the death of Alexei Navalny, the EU president, Ursula von der Leyen, and vice-president, Josep Borrell, said in a joint statement: He was slowly murdered by President Putin and his regime, who fear nothing more than dissent from their own people. We will spare no efforts to hold the Russian political leadership and authorities to account.The two commission leaders demanded Russia establish all facts around Navalny’s death and “immediately release all other political prisoners”, according to the Associated Press.
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Post by Webster on Feb 16, 2024 22:25:38 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Navalny spokesperson: death report 'most likely true'A spokesperson for Alexei Navalny, Kira Yarmysh, said on Friday afternoon that reports of his death in a Russian prison are “most likely true”. Yarmysh was speaking on her YouTube channel. She said Navalny’s relatives and lawyers will travel early on Saturday to the Siberian penal colony where he was in detention: Before [the attorney arrives] we do not have any verification, so we can not officially confirm or deny statements by all the Kremlin agencies that Alexei Navalny is dead. But really, we all understand full well that if [Russian press official Dmitri] Peskov is commenting and Putin and the rest - this cannot be an accident or a mistake. So, most likely it’s all true.
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Post by Webster on Feb 16, 2024 22:27:35 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Biden says Putin and 'his thugs' responsible for Navalny's deathJoe Biden says Vladimir Putin is wholly responsible for the death in a Russian jail of Alexei Navalny. Speaking at the White House, in his first comments following news that one of the Russian leader’s most vocal critics was dead, the US president said “like millions of people around the world”, he was “literally not surprised and outraged by the reported death of Alexei Navalny.” -- Make no mistake. Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death. Putin is responsible. What has happened and evolving is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality. No one should be fooled, not in Russia, not at home, not anywhere in the world [that] Putin does not only target citizens of other countries, as we’ve seen in what’s going on in Ukraine right now, he also inflicts terrible crimes on his own people.In questions from reporters following his address, Biden said the US was still awaiting formal confirmation of the Russian opposition leader’s death, but had no reason to doubt it. Asked if he thought it was “an assassination”, Biden said: The answer is we don’t know exactly what happened. But there is no doubt that the death of Navalny is a consequence of something Putin and his thugs did.
Joe Biden paid tribute to Alexei Navalny as he continued his remarks from the West Wing of the White House: People across Russia and around the world are mourning Navalny today.
He was so many things that Putin was not. He was brave. He was principled … dedicated to building a Russia where a rule of law existed and was applied everywhere, and to an evolving belief that Russia, as he knew it, was a cause worth fighting for, and obviously even dying for.Asked directly if he thought Navalny’s death was an “assassination”, the US president replied: There is no doubt that the death of Navalny is a consequence of something Putin and his thugs did.
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Post by Webster on Feb 16, 2024 22:29:11 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Biden: US stands by 'sacred commitment' to Nato in wake of Navalny deathJoe Biden cautioned that the US was still awaiting formal confirmation of Alexei Navalny’s death, but that there was little reason to doubt the reported death of one of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critics was not true. The US president also used Friday’s White House address to prod lawmakers in Washington DC, who have been stalling on a funding package to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s invasion. -- This tragedy reminds us of the stakes in this moment to provide the funding so Ukraine can keep defending itself against Putin’s vicious onslaught and war crimes.
You know, there was a bipartisan Senate vote that passed overwhelmingly in the United States Senate to fund Ukraine. History is watching. History is watching the House of Representatives. The failure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will never be forgotten. It’s true down the pages of history, it really is. It’s consequential. The clock is ticking. And this has to happen. We have to help now.Biden took a swipe at the former president Donald Trump, who caused a furore in a campaign speech at the weekend when he said he would encourage Russia to attack Nato countries that weren’t contributing enough financially to support the alliance. -- We have to realize what we’re dealing with. All of us should reject the dangerous statements made by the previous president that invited Russia to invade our Nato allies if they weren’t paying up.
He said if an ally did not pay their dues, he encouraged Russia to, quote, ‘do whatever the hell they want’. I guess I should clear my mind a little bit and not say what I’m really thinking, but let me be clear. This is an outrageous thing for a [former] president to say. I can’t fathom it.
As long as I’m president, America stands by our sacred commitment to our Nato allies.
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Post by Webster on Feb 16, 2024 22:30:32 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Here’s some more of what Joe Biden had to say about Alexei Navalny’s death, from the US president’s address at the White House that has now concluded: He bravely stood up to the corruption, the violence, all the bad things the Putin government was doing. In response, Putin had him poisoned. He had him arrested and prosecuted for fabricated crimes.
He sent him to prison, he was held in isolation. Even all that didn’t stop him from calling out the lies. Even in prison he was a powerful voice for the truth.
He could have lived safely in exile after the assassination attempt on him in 2020, which nearly killed him I might add. He was traveling outside the country at the time. Instead, he returned to Russia, knowing he might be imprisoned.During questions following his address, Biden was asked what consequences Russia might face: They’ve [already] faced a hell of a lot of consequences, and lost or had wounded over 350,000 Russian soldiers [in Ukraine]. They’ve been subjected to great sanctions across the board. And we’re contemplating what else can be done … we’re looking at a whole number of options.
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Post by Webster on Feb 20, 2024 0:13:41 GMT -5
(The Epoch Times) Trump Comments on Death of Russian Politician Alexei NavalnyFormer President Donald Trump on Monday commented on the death of Russian politician Alexei Navalny, who was a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a post on Truth Social, the 45th president likened Mr. Navalny’s woes to his own, saying, “The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country. “It is a slow, steady progression, with CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction. Open Borders, Rigged Elections, and Grossly Unfair Courtroom Decisions are DESTROYING AMERICA. WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE, A FAILING NATION! MAGA2024” President Joe Biden on Friday also commented on Mr. Navalny’s death, criticizing Mr. Putin, as did Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley. “Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death,” President Biden said. Former presidents and top members of Congress from both parties also denounced Mr. Putin over the death of Mr. Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, since it was reported on Friday. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters he was “deeply saddened and concerned” about the reports of Mr. Navalny’s death. “All the facts have to be established and Russia has serious questions to answer,” he said. “Alexei Navalny has been a strong voice for freedom, for democracy, for many years, and NATO and NATO allies have called for his immediate release for a long time.” U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told NPR in an interview, “If it’s confirmed, it is a terrible tragedy, and given the Russian government’s long and sordid history of doing harm to its opponents, it raises real and obvious questions about what happened here.” German Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide wrote on X: “Deeply saddened by the news of the death in prison by Alexei Navalny. The Russian Government bears a heavy responsibility.” Mr. Navalny died while being held in a penal colony north of the Arctic Circle, where he was serving an extended prison term. The Kremlin says he was a convicted criminal and had accused him and his supporters as extremists with links to the CIA, which they say is seeking to destabilize Russia. Mr. Navalny had denied all charges. Mr. Navalny, a lawyer, died at the age of 47. He was vocal about official corruption and had staged massive anti-Kremlin protests. He had been incarcerated since January 2021 following his return to Moscow from Germany, where he was recuperating from a nerve agent poisoning.
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