An archive photo dated September 29, 2019 shows Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny during a rally in support of political prisoners on Prospekt Sakharova Street in Moscow, Russia. Alexei Navalny is unconscious in the hospital after allegedly being poisoned, according to his press secretary.
Sefa Karacan | Anadolu Agency through 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 arrested on Sunday at a Moscow airport.
Early on Sunday, Navalny flew from Berlin, Germany, to Russia, where he has spent almost half a year recovering since he was poisoned last summer. He was arrested at passport control.
Last week, Russian authorities issued an arrest warrant for Navalny, alleging that he violated the terms of a three-and-a-half year suspended sentence he received in 2014 on charges of embezzlement.
“Mr. Navalny must be released immediately and the perpetrators of the outrageous attack on his life must be held responsible,” wrote Sullivan on Twitter.
The White House and the 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 takes office. The next Biden administration is expected to increase pressure on Russia.
In the wake of Navalny’s poisoning last year, Biden pledged “to work with our allies and partners to hold the Putin regime accountable for his crimes,” and accused President Donald Trump of not taking a tough enough position.
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has asked the Trump government to impose sanctions on Russia in response to Navalny’s poisoning. Trump, who leaves office on Wednesday, did not.
The United Kingdom and the European Union, close allies of the United States, acted quickly to impose targeted sanctions on six Russians and a state research center in October.
On board the flight back to Moscow, Navalny told reporters that he felt very good and that returning home was “the best time in the past five months”.
“I feel great. Finally, I’m going back to my hometown,” he said, according to a Reuters report.
Last year, Navalny was evacuated for medical reasons from a Russian hospital to Germany after he became ill after reports that something was added to his tea. Russian doctors who treated Navalny denied that the Kremlin critic was poisoned and attributed the low blood glucose to his coma.
In September, the German government said the 44-year-old Russian dissident was poisoned by a chemical nerve agent, describing the toxicology report as “unequivocal evidence”. The nervous agent belonged to the Novichok family, developed by the Soviet Union.
Shortly after the test results, the White House said it was “deeply concerned” about the matter and called the poisoning “completely reprehensible”.
“The United States is deeply concerned about the results released today,” said White House National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot in a statement written at the time. “Alexei Navalny’s poisoning is completely reprehensible. Russia has used the chemical agent for nerve 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’s.
Navalny’s arrest on Sunday is expected to further damage relations between European leaders and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and comes at a time when the Kremlin is working to secure a pipeline project, Nord Stream 2, for Germany.