Ahead of Joe Biden meeting, Vladimir Putin says Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny will be treated like any other prisoner

Russian president did not answer a question about whether he could promise the opposition leader would leave prison alive

Putin will meet US President Biden in Geneva this week, and denied waging a cyberwar on the United States

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Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during an interview with NBC News in Moscow. Photo: NBC/Reuters

Published: 1:51am, 15 Jun 2021Updated: 2:35am, 15 Jun 2021

Ahead of his first meeting with Joe Biden as US president in Geneva this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin has told US television network NBC that jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny would be treated in prison like any other inmate.

“He will not be treated any worse than anybody else,” Putin was quoted as saying, but gave no direct answer to a question about whether he could promise that Navalny would leave prison alive.

Navalny is expected to be a matter of dispute at the Putin-Biden summit.

Putin avoided referring to the opposition leader by name in the interview. “I proceed from the premise that the person that you have mentioned, the same kind of measures will apply to that person, not in any way worse than those applied to anybody else who happens to be in prison,” Putin said.

Putin will meet Biden at a time of the worst tensions in the relationship between Russia and the United States since the Cold War era.

“President Biden is fundamentally different from [former US president Donald] Trump, because he is a career man, he has spent almost his entire adulthood in politics,” Putin said.