The White House said the United States is “deeply troubled” about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s poisoning.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot said Wednesday that the “Russian people have a right to express their views peacefully without fear of retribution of any kind — and certainly not with chemical agents.”
Germany on Wednesday announced that Navalny, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critics, was poisoned with the Soviet/Russian-produced nerve agent Novichok, the same chemical compound believed to be used by Russian hitmen to target former Soviet double agent Sergei Skripal in 2018.
Ullyot said that the U.S. is “deeply troubled by the results released today” and added that Navalny’s poisoning is “completely reprehensible,” according to Axios.
“We will work with allies and the international community to hold those in Russia accountable, wherever the evidence leads, and restrict funds for their malign activities,” he said.
The remarks echo those of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who called the incident an “attempted murder.”
“It’s clear that Alexei Navalny is the victim of a crime. The intent was to silence him. I condemn this in the name of the whole government to the greatest possible extent,” she said at a news conference.
The 44-year-old activist fell ill and collapsed on a plane in August after drinking a cup of tea at an airport in Siberia. His team immediately suspected that he had been poisoned and worked to get him airlifted out of Russia for treatment. He remains in a coma at a Berlin hospital.
