The United States will announce on Friday a large package of sanctions against Russia for the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, John Kirby, one of the White House spokespersons, announced this Tuesday.
The objective of the sanctions will be to hold Russia responsible for Navalny’s death and to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin for the “ferocious” and “brutal” war he is waging against Ukraine, he detailed during a press conference.
The spokesperson did not specify what sanctions specifically the United States will impose on Russia, a country that has been subject to numerous economic restrictions by both Washington and the European Union (EU) since it began its invasion of Ukraine almost two years ago.
Joe Biden’s administration has imposed several sanctions against Russia, including actions to isolate oligarchs close to Putin, sanctions against the energy sector and the exclusion of Russian banks from the SWIFT international interbank communication system, which has further isolated the Russian economy of the international financial system.
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Last Friday, shortly after Navalny’s death was made public, Biden gave a speech at the White House in which he held Putin directly responsible for the death and warned that he was evaluating “different options” to respond to that event.
The American president already announced in 2021 after meeting with Putin in Geneva that there would be “devastating consequences” for Russia if Navalny died in prison.
Navalni, 47, died after feeling bad after taking a walk in the prison where he was being held and, although the medical services tried to revive him “for more than half an hour”, he ended up losing his life.
Navalny had survived an attempted poisoning with the chemical agent Novichok in 2020 and his health had been a cause of growing concern after he declared a hunger strike between March and April 2021, weeks in which he lost a lot of weight.
Navalni’s mother and widow have questioned the Russian authorities’ version of the opposition leader’s death and have demanded that the politician’s body be handed over to them to find out what caused him to lose his life.
The entry the US will announce sanctions against Russia on Friday for the death of Navalny was first published in EL NACIONAL.