The life of Russian opposition figure Aleksei Navalny looks to be hanging by a thread.
His fate has the potential to ratchet up tensions between …
The life of Russian opposition figure Aleksei Navalny looks to be hanging by a thread. His fate has the potential to ratchet up tensions between the United States and Moscow, which are already running hot. Navalny has been imprisoned in a notoriously harsh Russian prison since January, convicted of what his supporters consider to be trumped-up charges. He is about three weeks into a hunger strike, seeking to be treated by physicians of his own choosing, and was transferred to a hospital on Monday. A Russian doctor said to be in touch with Navalny’s family wrote that he “could die at any moment,” in a Facebook post published over the weekend. The grave situation is coming to a head just days after President Biden introduced new sanctions on Russia for a raft of alleged misdeeds. They encompass the SolarWinds hack, which targeted numerous American computer networks, including those of nine government agencies; alleged interference in the 2020 presidential election; and the apparent offering of bounties for the killing of U.S. service members in Afghanistan. Russia denies wrongdoing on all fronts. But alongside the new sanctions, the White House has held out the possibility of a summit between Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Foreign policy experts believe Putin would welcome such an event, which would play into his keen sense of Russia as a Great Power. But should a summit be on the table — even in its current vague form — with the Navalny situation at a crisis point? White House press secretary Jen Psaki did not engage with the question when asked directly by Eli Stokols of the Los Angeles Times at Monday’s media briefing. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), who last year introduced a House resolution condemning the Russian government’s treatment of Navalny, said he “trusted” Biden on the issue, in stark contrast to former President Trump, but that any meeting would have to foreground human rights concerns.
