A photo from the file dated September 29, 2019 shows the leader of the Russian opposition Alexei Navalny during a rally in support of political prisoners on Prospekt Sakharova Street in Moscow, Russia. Alexei Navalny is unconscious at the hospital after being poisoned, according to his press secretary.
Sefa Karacan | Anadolu Agency through Getty Images
WASHINGTON – Jake Sullivan, an adviser to President-elect Joe Biden, has demanded the immediate release of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was detained on Sunday at an airport in Moscow.
Earlier on Sunday, Navalny flew to Russia from Berlin, Germany, where he spent nearly half a year recovering from poisoning last summer. He was arrested at passport control.
Last week, Russian authorities issued a warrant for Navalny’s arrest, claiming that he had violated the terms of a three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence he received in 2014 on charges of embezzlement.
“Mr Navalny should be released immediately, and the perpetrators of the outrageous attack on his life should be held accountable,” Sullivan wrote 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 just days before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in. Biden’s new administration is expected to increase pressure on Russia.
Following Navalny’s poisoning last year, Biden vowed 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 stance.
A bipartisan group of US senators has called on the Trump administration to impose sanctions on Russia in response to Navalny’s poisoning. Trump, who is leaving office on Wednesday, has not done so.
The United Kingdom and the European Union, close allies of the United States, rushed to impose sanctions on six Russians and a state research center in October.
On board the return flight to Moscow, Navalny told reporters that he was feeling great and that the trip home was “the best time of the last five months.”
“I feel great. I’m finally going back to my hometown,” he said, according to a Reuters report.
Last year, Navalny was medically evacuated to Germany from a Russian hospital after reports of something added to tea. Russian doctors who treated Navalny denied that the Kremlin critic had been poisoned and blamed his comatose state on his low blood sugar.
In September, the German government said the 44-year-old Russian dissident had been poisoned by a chemical nerve agent, describing the toxicology report as “unequivocal evidence”. The nervous agent was in the Novichok family, which was developed by the Soviet Union.
After the test results, the White House said it was “deeply troubled” by the issue and called the poisoning “completely reprehensible.”
“The United States is deeply troubled by the results released today,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot said in a written statement at the time. “Alexei Navalny’s intoxication is completely reprehensible. Russia has used the chemical nerve agent 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 poisoning Navalny and Skripal.
Sunday’s arrest of Navalny is set to further strain relations between European leaders and Russian President Vladimir Putin and comes as the Kremlin works to secure a gas pipeline project, Nord Stream 2, in Germany.