Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has paid with his life for his “resistance to a system of oppression”, French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne has said.
The prison service of the Yamalo-Nenets region earlier confirmed Navalny’s death.
“His death in a penal colony reminds us of the reality of Vladimir Putin’s regime”, said Mr Sejourne
Norway’s Foreign Minister said Moscow bears a “heavy responsibility” over Navalny’s death.
“The Russian government bears a heavy responsibility,” Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide wrote on X, adding that he was “deeply saddened by the news”.
Meanwhile, Russian newspaper editor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov told Reuters that Navalny’s death was “murder”, and said that he believed prison conditions had led to his demise.
Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched a procedural probe into the death, the Investigative Committee said.
The Latvian President said that Navalny had been “brutally murdered by the Kremlin”.
“Whatever your thoughts about Alexei Navalny as the politician, he was just brutally murdered by the Kremlin. That’s a fact and that is something one should know about the true nature of Russia’s current regime,” President Edgars Rinkevics said on X, offering condolences to Navalny’s relatives.
