Joe Biden meets Alexei Navalny’s widow and daughter, promises sanctions on Vladimir Putin
- US president told Yulia and Dasha Navalnaya in San Francisco that the late Russian opposition leader was ‘a man of incredible courage’
- Washington planned to impose a wide array of sanctions on Russia and President Vladimir Putin following Navalny’s death in prison
US President Joe Biden had a private meeting with the widow and daughter of Alexei Navalny in California on Thursday, as his administration announced fresh sanctions against Russia over the death of the Kremlin opposition leader.
The visit at a hotel in San Francisco came as the White House backed Navalny’s mother in her fight to retrieve her son’s body, which Russian authorities have refused to release days after he died in an Arctic prison.
Navalny’s team says the 47-year-old, President Vladimir Putin’s most outspoken critic, was murdered.
Biden could be seen hugging Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s widow, and leaning forward as he spoke with her and daughter Dasha, a student at Stanford University, in images released by the White House.
The president’s own history of loss – his first wife and his infant daughter were killed in a car crash in 1972, while his son Beau died of cancer in 2015 – has seen him often referred to as America’s Consoler-in-Chief.