The sudden death of Russia’s opposition leader, as reported Friday by the prison service of the Yamalo-Nenets region where he had been serving his sentence, has landed in the midst of a momentous battle in Washington over whether to keep funding Russia’s military adversary Ukraine.
President Joe Biden, in news conference, saluted the late Alexei Navalny as a brave, principled man who knowingly risked his safety by returning to Russia from exile in 2021.
Biden made clear he blames Russia’s leader for the death, even if the exact cause isn’t yet known: “[Vladimir] Putin [once] had him poisoned, he had him arrested, he had him prosecuted…. Putin is responsible.”
He
