US President Joe Biden says he holds Russian President Vladimir Putin responsible after the Russian prison service announced that opposition leader Alexey Navalny had died in prison.
“Make no mistake: Putin is responsible for Navalny's death,” he said. “Putin not only attacks citizens of other countries, as we have seen in what is happening in Ukraine right now; he also inflicts terrible crimes on his own people,” the president added.
The president said he was “outraged” by the news.
Navalny “bravely stood up to corruption, violence and all the bad things Putin's government was doing. In response, Putin poisoned him, arrested him and prosecuted him for trumped-up crimes,” Biden said.
“Even in prison, he was a powerful voice for the truth,” he said.
“He could have lived safely in exile after the assassination attempt he suffered in 2020, which almost killed him,” he said. “Instead, he returned to Russia, knowing that he would probably be imprisoned and perhaps killed if he continued his work. But he did it anyway. Because he believed deeply in his country, in Russia,” the president continued.
