USA TODAY
President Joe Biden blamed the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Vladimir Putin and put the Russian leader on notice that the U.S. was exploring consequences.
“Make no mistake, Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death,” Biden said Friday in remarks from the White House’s Roosevelt Room. “What has happened is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality. No one should be fooled. Not in Russia, not at home, not anywhere in the world.”
Navalny, 47, who had survived a poisoning and spent months in isolation, died in an Arctic Circle maximum-security prison, Russian state media reported Friday. Navalny was last seen Thursday, smiling and making jokes in a video taken during a court appearance in the Russian penal colony where he was in captivity.
Biden said he is “both not surprised and outraged” by Navalny’s death. He said the U.S. doesn’t know exactly what happened, “but there is no doubt that the death of Navalny is a consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”
“We’re looking at a whole number of options,” Biden said of the U.S. response, while renewing his push for Congress to approve security funding for Ukraine. “This tragedy reminds us of the stakes of this moment. We have to provide the funding so Ukraine can keep defending itself against Putin’s vicious…
