A file photo from September 29, 2019 shows Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny during a demonstration in support of political prisoners on Prospekt Sakharova Street in Moscow, Russia. Alexei Navalny is unconscious in hospital after allegedly poisoned, according to his press secretary.
Sefa Karacan | Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
WASHINGTON – President-elect Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan called for the immediate release of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was detained at an airport in Moscow on Sunday.
Earlier on Sunday, Navalny flew to Russia from Berlin, Germany, where he has recovered nearly half a year since he was poisoned last summer. He was arrested at passport control.
Last week, Russian authorities issued an arrest warrant for Navalny’s arrest, claiming that he violated the terms of a three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence he received in 2014 for embezzlement.
“Mr. Navalny should be released immediately and the perpetrators of the outrageous assault on his life held accountable,” Sullivan wrote on Twitter.
The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Sullivan’s call for Navalny’s release comes days before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in. Biden’s upcoming government is expected to put pressure on Russia.
In the aftermath of Navalny’s poisoning last year, Biden pledged “to work with our allies and partners to hold Putin’s regime accountable for his crimes,” and accused President Donald Trump of not being harsh enough.
A bipartisan group of US senators had called on the Trump administration to impose sanctions on Russia in response to Navalny’s poisoning. Trump, who is leaving office on Wednesday, has not.
The United Kingdom and the European Union, close allies of the US, took swift action in October to impose targeted sanctions on six Russians and a state research center.
On board the flight back to Moscow, Navalny told reporters that he was feeling great and that the journey home was “the best moment in the past five months.”
“I feel great. I’m finally returning to my hometown,” he said, according to a Reuters report.
Last year, Navalny was medically evacuated from a Russian hospital to Germany after becoming ill after reports that something had been added to his tea. Russian doctors who treated Navalny denied that the Kremlin critic had been poisoned and blamed his comatose condition on the low blood sugar.
In September, the German government said the 44-year-old Russian dissident had been poisoned by a chemical nerve agent, describing the toxicology report as “unequivocal evidence”. The nerve agent was in the Novichok family, which was developed by the Soviet Union.
Following the test results, the White House said it was “deeply disturbed” by the case and called the poisoning “utterly reprehensible”.
“The United States is deeply disturbed by the results announced today,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot said in a written statement at the time. “The poisoning of Alexei Navalny is utterly reprehensible. Russia has used the chemical nerve agent Novichok in the past,” he said, referring to the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England in 2018.
The Kremlin has repeatedly denied a role in the poisoning of Navalny and Skripal.
Navalny’s arrest on Sunday is poised to further strain relations between European leaders and Russian President Vladimir Putin and comes as the Kremlin works to secure a gas pipeline project, Nord Stream 2, to Germany.