Biden holds poignant meeting with Navalny’s daughter, widow

AFP |  San Francisco                                           

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

President Joe Biden had a private, emotional meeting with the widow and daughter of Alexei Navalny in California on Thursday, as his administration prepared to announce fresh sanctions against Russia over the death of the Kremlin opposition leader.

The visit at hotel in San Francisco came as the White House backed Navalny’s mother in her fight to retrieve her son’s body, which Russian authorities have refused to release days after he died in an Arctic prison.

Biden could be seen hugging Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s widow, and leaning forward as he spoke with her and daughter Dasha, a student at Stanford University, in images released by the White House.

The president’s own history of loss -- his first wife and his infant daughter were killed in a car crash in 1972, while his son Beau died of cancer in 2015 -- has seen him often referred to as America’s Consoler-in-Chief.

After the meeting, he said the two women were emulating Navalny’s “incredible courage.”

Yulia Navalnaya, who has vowed to continue her late husband’s opposition to Putin, is “not giving up,” he said.

Biden also took direct aim at the Russian leader, reaffirming that his administration will unveil sanctions yesterday “against Putin, who is responsible for his death.”

The US and its allies have imposed a slew of sanctions on Russia since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Hundreds of people have been detained in Russia in recent days at events to pay tribute to Navalny.

His mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, travelled to Russia’s Far North the morning after her son’s death was announced, hoping to retrieve his body.

For days officials refused her access, prompting her to make a video appeal directly to Putin himself.

On Thursday she said she had been shown Navalny’s body in a morgue in Salekhard, the nearest town to the remote prison.