World leaders blame Putin for Alexei Navalny’s death in a Russian prison | Live updates

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country will cooperate with anyone worldwide capable of holding Vladimir Putin accountable.

Zelenskyy appeared Friday at a joint press conference with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in Paris following the signing of a 10-year security agreement between both countries. Zelenskyy remarked that they were meeting “on the day when it became known about another political assassination committed by Putin”.

“Putin has already become one of the bloodiest dictators in European history, but unfortunately his journey is not over,” he said, commenting on Navalny’s death. “I urge every leader in the world to not remain silent and not stand aside. And those in power, And those in opposition. The murderer must be punished”.

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President Joe Biden said Friday that the apparent death of Russian anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny brings new urgency to the need for Congress to approve tens of billions of dollars for Ukraine to stave off Moscow’s invasion.

Republican Speaker Mike Johnson earlier this week said the House won’t be “rushed” to pass the aid, but on Friday he said Putin was “a vicious dictator and the world knows he is likely directly responsible for the sudden death of his most prominent political opponent.”

“We must be clear that Putin will be met with united opposition,” Johnson, R-La., said in a statement.

Lawmakers who have pushed for the Ukraine legislation blamed the Republicans who have sided with Trump as he has urged its defeat.

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who voted for the package, said that Navalny laid down his life fighting for a country he loved and that “Putin is a murderous, paranoid dictator.”

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French President Emmanuel Macron said Navalny’s death underlines “the weakness of the Kremlin that fears any opponent.”

Vladimir Putin’s Russia “puts free spirits in the gulag and condemns them to death,” Macron said at a joint media conference in Paris with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after the two leaders signed a security agreement.

Macron called on Russia to “shed light on the circumstances of this tragedy.”

Macron underlined concern for Vladimir Kara-Murza, whose health has declined after two poisoning attempts in 2015 and 2017 and his incarceration in April 2023. The French president also mentioned Oleg Orlov, who was imprisoned after speaking out against Russia’s war in Ukraine.

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After initially allowing people to lay flowers at monuments to victims of Soviet-era repressions in several Russian cities, police sealed off some of the areas and started making arrests.

About 30 people were detained in St. Petersburg, according to the local media, which posted videos of some of the arrests.

In Moscow, more than a dozen people were rounded up by police as they tried to lay flowers at the monument to repression victims near the main headquarters of the main domestic security agency. Among them was a young man who carried a placard that read “Killer,” according to the OVD-Info group that monitors political arrests.

The group also reported arrests at several other cities across Russia.

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When Christo Grozev, executive director of the investigative collective Bellingcat, recently re-watched the documentary “Navalny” in early 2022, he was struck by how much the film affected him differently since Vladimir Putin launched Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“Navalny,” directed by Daniel Roher, is a gripping portrait of the Russian dissident beginning with the 2020 poisoning that nearly killed him, and which Grozev traced directly to the Kremlin.

Grozev uncovered that Navalny had been attacked with the nerve agent Novichok and that the alleged assassination attempt was the work of a Kremlin spy unit. (The Kremlin has denied it.)

At the time, Grozev wondered if it would seem too far fetched that Putin would go to such Bond villain extremes.

“When we did the investigation in 2020, I struggled with: How am I going to convince Russian audiences and the world that what I’m saying is true — that the president of a large country that wants to be a moral leader in the world has been assassinating people?” Grozev said in a 2022 interview with the Associated Press. “Now, it doesn’t seem like it’s such a big leap of faith.”

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For more on the film “Navalny,” check out these articles from the AP archive:

• Review: A portrait of a Putin opposition leader in ‘Navalny’
• ‘Navalny’ wins doc Oscar
• ‘Navalny’ aims to make noise for imprisoned Russian leader

In Washington, a person wearing a mask splashed red liquid on the plaque on the gates of the Russian Embassy.

People also were placing flowers outside the gates, by a sign that read: “Putin killed Navalny but he can’t be silenced.”

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About 200 people gathered near the Russian embassy in Prague to honor Alexei Navalny. They were lighting candles, laying flowers and chanting his name.

A picture of Navalny was attached to a tree together with a banner that read: “We won’t forget and we won’t forgive” in Russian.

The response in Russia was far different.

Navalny ally Lyubov Sobol said that although people were laying flowers at memorials to victims of Soviet-era political repressions to pay tributes to Navalny, the repressive political environment makes any street protests risky for participants.

“Protests are banned in Russia, and people could get long prison terms for taking part in a peaceful protest,” Sobol told The Associated Press.

The United Nations chief is calling for “a full, credible and transparent investigation” into the circumstances of Alexey Navalny’s death in a Russian prison.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “is shocked” by the reported death of the opposition figure in detention, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Friday.

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“The secretary-general expresses his condolences to Mr. Navalny’s family,” the spokesman said.

Responding to questions, Dujarric said “credible” means “something that can be believed.”

Asked whether the secretary-general would consider an investigation carried out by Russian authorities to be credible, Dujarric said, “people should reserve judgment” until they see the results.

Liz Throssell, a spokesperson for the human rights office in Geneva, said that when a person dies in custody, “the presumption is that the state is responsible — a responsibility that can only be rebutted through an impartial, thorough and transparent investigation carried out by an independent body.”

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Addressing reporters at the White House on Friday, U.S. President Joe Biden said that, like many around the world, he was “not surprised and outraged by the news” of Navalny’s death.

He said Navalny “could have lived safely in exile” after multiple assassination attempts, but instead returned to Russia to “continue his work,” despite knowing he could be imprisoned or killed “because he believe so deeply in his country, in Russa.”

“Make no mistake, Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death. Putin is responsible,” Biden said, adding that he had “no reason to believe” the reports of Navalny’s death were untrue but that “Russian authorities are going to tell their own story.”

“We don’t know exactly what happened but there is no doubt that the death of Navalny was a consequence of something Putin and his thugs did,” Biden said.

The death of the Russian opposition leader has led to an outpouring of grief among Russians living abroad.

In the Serbian capital of Belgrade, hundreds of Russians and others lit candles and laid flowers outside of the Russian embassy.

Tens of thousands of Russians have moved to Serbia, a fellow Slavic country, since Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago, many dodging the draft or fleeing Putin’s regime. Unlike during other rallies planned by pro-democracy Russians in Serbia, police did not keep them from reaching the embassy Friday.

One man said that “it feels like the last hope is dead,” while another one added he still can’t accept the news of Navalny’s death and can’t believe it is true.

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People attend a protest in front of Russian embassy in Belgrade, Serbia, Friday, Feb. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

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A man lays flowers during protest in front of Russian embassy in Belgrade, Serbia, Friday, Feb. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

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A man cries during a protest in front of Russian embassy in Belgrade, Serbia, Friday, Feb. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

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Dozens also gathered outside of the Russian embassy in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, which has also seen a huge influx of Russians since the invasion of Ukraine. Some held banners saying “Putin is the killer” and “We will not forgive.” Up to 300 people attended a similar rally in Georgia’s third-largest city, Batumi.

And small groups of Russians turned up at the Russian consulate in Istanbul hoping to lay flowers to honor Navalny, but were turned away by police who cited a Turkish government decree that bars protests along the busy street where the consulate is located.

On margins of the Munich Security Conference, Vice President Harris met with Yulia Navalnaya, Alexey Navalny’s wife, according to a White House official.

The Vice President expressed her sorrow and outrage over reports of his death and said her prayers are with Navalnaya and the entire family.

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Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov is among the Kremlin critics blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin and his regime for the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Kasparov, who left Russia a decade ago fearing political persecution, wrote on X that “Putin tried and failed to murder Navalny quickly and secretly with poison, and now he has murdered him slowly and publicly in prison.”

In 2012, Kasparov was arrested and charged with participating in an unsanctioned protest following the conviction of Russian punk band Pussy Riot. He was eventually cleared of the charges.

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Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, an opposition leader in exile to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a Putin ally, and whose activist husband Siarhei Tsikhanouski is serving a long prison sentence for organizing protests, also weighed in on X.

She wrote: ”This tragedy is further proof that for dictators, human life holds no value. I urge the global community to act now to protect my husband & other political prisoners, who are in great danger.”

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In a social media post relayed from prison last month, Navalny said that since returning to Russia from Germany in 2021 following his poisoning, he had been repeatedly asked by fellow inmates and jailers why he came back.

He said he returned to stand for his beliefs and that he was annoyed by the question, noting it reflected that Russia’s repressive politics had “instilled cynicism and conspiracy theories to such an extent that it made people reluctant to believe simple motives.”

“I have my country and my beliefs,” Navalny wrote. “And I don’t want to give up either my country or my beliefs. And I cannot betray either the first or the second. If your beliefs are worth something, you must be willing to stand up for them. And if necessary, make some sacrifices.”

Navalny said he promised not to abandon the Russian people, and that by returning, he fulfilled that promise.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that Russia has questions to answer if reports of the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny are true.

“All the facts have to be established and Russia has serious questions to answer,” Stoltenberg told reporters at the Munich Security Conference.

Stoltenberg said he had no details about what happened to the opposition leader. “What we have seen is that Russia has become a more and more authoritarian power, that they have used repression against the opposition for many years,” Stoltenberg said.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s office for democratic institutions and human rights has called on Russian authorities “to launch an immediate and credible investigation into the circumstances in which he died, and to allow Mr Navalny’s representatives full access to it.”

“From the very beginning, Mr Navalny’s imprisonment was a fundamental violation of the right to voice dissent as well as the right to a fair trial,” the office’s director, Matteo Mecacci, said in a statement.

The 57-nation OSCE was set up during the Cold War to help defuse tension between East and West.

Sergei Mironov, leader of pro-Kremlin A Just Russia party, said in a statement that “Russia’s enemies” benefit from Navalny’s death.

“Of course, health issues could have been the cause of death. But in any case, a premature death of a notorious ‘opposition figure’, especially a month before the presidential election, is beneficial first and foremost to Russia’s enemies.”

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said “the immediate reaction of NATO leaders to Navalny’s death in the form of direct accusations against Russia is self-exposing.”

World leaders were quick to react to news of the death of Navalny and to condemn the Russian government for his imprisonment.

In a posting on X, French President Emmanuel Macron hailed Navalny’s courage and his commitment to democracy in Putin’s Russia, where “free spirits are being sent to a gulag.”

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said in a statement that, “The death of Alexei Navalny, during his detention, is another sad page that warns the international community.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, said in a radio interview: “He was such a strong fighter for democracy, for freedoms, for the Russian people. It really shows the extent to which Putin will crack down on anyone who is fighting for freedom for the Russian people.”

In a posting on X, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said Navalny is just the latest Kremlin critic to have been “killed by Putin. After each assassination there was a wave of outrage, but in the end Putin got away with it, and world leaders shook his hand again. This motivated him to continue killing people.”

Alexei Navalny’s imprisonment was a point of deep tension in the U.S.-Russia relationship.

President Joe Biden said after his 2021 summit with Putin that he made clear to the Russian leader there would “devastating” consequences for Russia if Navalny were to die in prison.

The White House did not not receive any forewarning from the Kremlin that Navalny had died ahead of the Russian prison agency’s announcement, according to a senior Biden administration official. The official, who was not authorized to comment, added that the Russians would have no obligation to do so.

On the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken blamed Navalny’s death on Putin and his government.

“For more than a decade, the Russian government, Putin, persecuted, poisoned and imprisoned Alexei Navalny,” Blinken told reporters. “First and foremost, if these reports are accurate, our hearts go out to his wife and his family.”

“Beyond that,” he added. “His death in a Russian prison and the fixation and fear of one man only underscores the weakness and rot at the heart of the system that Putin has built. Russia is responsible for this.”

Alexei Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, blamed the reported death of her husband on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his regime, saying they are responsible for all of the “terrible things” being done to the country and predicting that they won’t remain in power for long.

Speaking from the main stage at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, Navalnaya said that if her husband did in fact die — expressing skepticism because her team had only heard it from Russian government sources — she wants Putin and his friends in power to know that they “bear responsibility for what they did to our country, to my family and to my husband.”

She said she wavered on whether to speak at the conference or to fly straight to the couple’s two children.

“But then I thought what Alexey would do in my place. And I’m sure he would be here. He would be on this stage.”

Navalny was moved in December from a prison in central Russia to a “special regime” penal colony — the highest security level of prisons in the country — above the Artic Circle.

His allies decried the transfer to a colony in the town of Kharp, in a region about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow, as yet another attempt to force Navalny into silence.

The life of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny

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FILE - Alexei Navalny speaks to journalists after being released from a police custody on the outskirts of Moscow early Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2011. Russian authorities on Friday, Feb. 16, 2023, say Navalny, the fiercest foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests, died in prison. He was 47. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel, File)

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FILE - Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny listens to a question while speaking to the media in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2013. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

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FILE - In this Saturday, Sept. 15, 2012 file photo Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny speaks at a protest rally in Moscow, Russia. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev, File)

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FILE - Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, 2nd left, and his lawyers Alexander Fedulov, left, Olga Mikhailova, right, and Vadim Kobzev, second right, are seen on a TV screen standing among his lawyers, as he appears in a video link provided by the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, during a hearing in the colony, in Melekhovo, Vladimir region, about 260 kilometers (163 miles) northeast of Moscow, Russia, on Friday, Aug. 4, 2023. (AP Photo, File)

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FILE - Opposition leader Alexei Navalny, center, heads to hold a picket in Lubyanka Square in Moscow, Saturday Oct. 27, 2012. Opposition leaders and activists held a one-man picket against torture in Russia. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev, File)

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FILE - Police detain protest leader Alexei Navalny, seen wearing hooded jacket, after a rally in Pushkin Square in Moscow, Monday, March 5, 2012. (AP Photo/Maria Turchenkova, File)

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In a span of a decade, Navalny went from being the Kremlin’s biggest foe to Russia’s most prominent political prisoner.

▶ Here’s a look at key events in Navalny’s life, political activism and the charges he has faced through the years.

Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that the politician’s team had no confirmation of his death so far and that his lawyer was traveling to the town where he was held.

We’ll cover unfolding developments on this page, but if you’re just getting up to speed, start here:

Alexei Navalny, the fiercest foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests, died in prison Friday, Russian authorities said. He was 47.

Navalny, who was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism, felt unwell after a walk, according to the Federal Penitentiary Service, and lost consciousness. An ambulance arrived to try to revive him, but he died. It said the cause of death was “being established.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin was informed of Navalny’s death and the prison service would look into it in line with standard procedures.

▶ Read the breaking news story.