What happened?
President Joe Biden met with Yulia and Daria Navalnaya, the widow and daughter of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, in San Francisco to “express his heartfelt condolences” for Navalny’s death in a Russian prison and to preview Friday’s retaliatory “major new sanctions against Russia,” the White House said. In Russia, Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, said she was “secretly” shown her son’s body, told his death was from “natural causes,” and warned she could only bury him if she agreed to a “secret funeral.”
Who said what?
“By law, they’re supposed to give me Alexei’s body immediately,” but “instead, they are blackmailing me,” Lyudmila Navalnaya said. Russian President Vladimir Putin “is responsible for his death,” Biden said. “We are not letting up.”
The commentary
Biden’s visit with Navalny’s widow and the Kremlin’s wrangling over his remains underscore “how pivotal a figure he is in Russian politics and around the world,” and how nervous he makes the Kremlin — “even in death,” The New York Times said. “It is hard to surprise us,” said Navalny aide Ivan Zhdanov. But it’s still shocking “a mother would be blackmailed with a rotting body in order to bring it to Moscow and bury it in secret.”
What next?
The new sanctions on 500 targets aim to further “damage and isolate Russia’s economy” after its Ukraine invasion and Navalny’s death, the Times said. But so far Russia has “largely weathered the restrictions,” thanks largely to record oil purchases by China, India and Brazil.