By : JD News Desk
Jordan Daily – The death of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny in a Siberian prison on Friday sparked a wave of condemnation from Western countries, who accused Moscow of murdering him and demanded an independent investigation.
Navalny, 47,who was serving a three-decade sentence , collapsed during his daily walk and was later pronounced dead. The cause of death is still being established.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said the Western reactions “once again demonstrated their hypocrisy, cynicism and lack of principles” and suggested they were pre-planned and based on a “blame Russia no matter what” template.
It said the world has witnessed the “helpless ‘investigation’ of terrorist attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipeline” that had yielded no results for months.
The ministry said the first accusations against Russia came from Sweden and Norway at 2:35 p.m. Moscow time, 16 minutes after Navalny’s death was announced by the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region.
They were followed by a barrage of similar statements from Latvia, the Czech Republic, France, the European Union, Ukraine, the Netherlands, Moldova, Germany, the United States and others, the ministry said.
Some of the Western leaders called Navalny’s death a “heinous crime”, a “brutal murder” and a “tragic death” and held Putin or the Russian regime “solely responsible” for it.
They also praised Navalny as a “symbol of a free and democratic Russia” and a fighter against “the system of oppression,” the statement added.
Navalny was arrested in 2021 upon returning from Germany, where he had been treated for poisoning with a nerve agent that he blamed on the Kremlin. Russia denied any involvement.
