Biden meets with Navalny family in California, pledges sanctions against Putin
President Joe Biden met Thursday with the wife and daughter of the late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, the White House said, as the president prepares to levy additional sanctions against Russia, CNN reports.
After the meeting, Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin himself will be sanctioned.
“I had the honor of meeting with his wife and daughter and, to state the obvious, he was a man of incredible courage,” Biden told reporters of Navalny. “We’re gonna be announcing sanctions against Putin, who is responsible for his death, tomorrow.”
Biden said it was clear from the meeting that Navalny’s wife would “continue to fight.”
“We’re not letting up,” he said.
The meeting occurred in California, where Biden is traveling for political fundraisers. Dasha Navalnaya, Navalny’s daughter, is a student at Stanford University.
In a statement, the White House said Biden “expressed his admiration for Aleksey Navalny’s extraordinary courage and his legacy of fighting against corruption and for a free and democratic Russia in which the rule of law applies equally to everyone.”
Biden “emphasized that Aleksey’s legacy will carry on through people across Russia and around the world mourning his loss and fighting for freedom, democracy, and human rights.”
The meeting with Yulia and Dasha Navalnaya came a day ahead of an expected new round of US sanctions on Russia, in part for Navalny’s death.
Biden, in his meeting, “affirmed that his Administration will announce major new sanctions against Russia tomorrow in response to Aleksey’s death, Russia’s repression and aggression, and its brutal and illegal war in Ukraine.”
According to a Treasury official, the Biden administration will impose new sanctions on more than 500 targets on Friday in response to Navalny’s death and on the eve of Russia’s two-year war in Ukraine.
