OAN’s Brooke Mallory
1:05 PM – Tuesday, February 20, 2024
In an attempt to hold Russia accountable for allegedly killing Vladimir Putin’s opposition candidate Alexei Navalny last week, President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that his administration will now impose significant sanctions on the country on Friday.
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Prior to departing for a campaign tour to the West Coast, Biden gave reporters confirmation of the upcoming package.
“What I came to tell you was [that] we’d be announcing sanctions on Russia. We’ll have a major package announced on Friday,” Biden said.
The new penalties were initially made public earlier on Tuesday by National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, who also stated that the restrictions were a reaction to Russia’s ongoing aggression in Ukraine, which started almost two years ago.
He emphasized that passing an emergency spending bill by Congress that would aid Taiwan, Israel, and Ukraine is one of the “strongest moves” that the United States can make to oppose Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In a Russian prison colony above the Arctic Circle, Navalny passed away at the age of 47, the nation’s jail service announced on Friday. Late last year, Navalny was transferred to that prison, where he was serving a combined sentence of more than 30 years for charges of fraud and extremism, both of which he disputed.
“On February 16, 2024, in penal colony No. 3, convict A.A. Navalny felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness,” the prison service for the Yamalo-Nenets region said in a statement on its website.
There is allegedly no further information that Russian authorities know regarding the circumstances of his death. Navalny appeared healthy and well in a video of a court hearing the day before.
The family of Navalny is still fighting for the return of his body. His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, claims Russia is concealing the body in order to hide what she claims to be murder.
In an unequivocal accusation of Putin’s alleged responsibility for Navalny’s death on Friday, Biden hinted that the United States would impose more sanctions on Russia.
“Make no mistake, Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death. Putin is responsible,” he said at the White House. “What has happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality. No one should be fooled—not in Russia, not at home, not anywhere in the world. Putin does not only target his [the] citizens of other countries; as we’ve seen what’s going on in Ukraine right now, he also inflicts terrible crimes on his own people.”
When questioned if Navalny’s murder was the result of an assassination, Biden responded, “We don’t know exactly what happened, but there is no doubt that something Putin and his thugs did [something],” leading to Navalny’s death.
Biden expressed his hope that Navalny’s passing will prompt Congress to approve the emergency aid package, which would give Ukraine additional aid on top of the billions of dollars that the U.S. has already given the country.
“The failure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will never be forgotten,” Biden said. “It’s going to go down in the pages of history. It really is. It’s consequential.”
On Saturday, the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden is scheduled to participate in a virtual conference of G7 leaders, according to a U.S. official on Tuesday.
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