WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has directed his administration to impose major sanctions to hold Russia accountable for the death last week of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the White House said Tuesday.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that the sanctions package, which comes ahead of the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, will be announced on Friday.
Kirby stressed that one of the most powerful actions the U.S. can take to stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin is for Congress to pass an emergency spending bill that would provide aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
Navalny died at the age of 47 in a Russian penal colony located above the Arctic Circle, the country’s prison service said Friday. Navalny, who was serving a combined prison sentence of more than 30 years on charges of extremism and fraud that he denied, was moved to that prison late last year.
“On February 16, 2024, in penal colony No. 3, convict A.A. Navalny felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness,” the prison service for the Yamalo-Nenets region said in a statement on its website.
Russian authorities haven’t provided any additional details about the circumstances surrounding his death. During a court proceeding that Navalny attended on video from the prison a day earlier, he looked healthy.
Meanwhile, Navalny’s family is still pushing for the release of his body, which his widow Yulia Navalnaya has accused Russia of hiding to cover up what she says was murder.
In remarks from the White House Friday, Biden explicitly blamed Putin for Navalny’s death and didn’t rule out the possibility of the U.S. increasing sanctions on Russia.
“Make no mistake, Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death. Putin is responsible,” he said. “What has happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality. No one should be fooled — not in Russia, not at home, not anywhere in the world. Putin does not only target his [the] citizens of other countries, as we’ve seen what’s going on in Ukraine right now, he also inflicts terrible crimes on his own people.”
Asked if Navalny’s death was an assassination, Biden said, “We don’t know exactly what happened, but there is no doubt that the death of Navalny was a consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”
Biden said he hopes that Navalny’s death spurs Congress to pass the emergency aid package that would provide much-needed assistance to Ukraine as it still battles Russian forces.
“The failure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will never be forgotten,” Biden said. “It’s going to go down in the pages of history. It really is. It’s consequential.”
A U.S. official said Tuesday that Biden will join a virtual meeting of G7 leaders on Saturday, which is the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Italian government announced Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is also expected to join that call.
Peter Alexander, Monica Alba, Mike Memoli and Allie Raffa contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
