by ALEX LANTIER & JOSEPH KISHORE
The death of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison on Friday has been immediately integrated into a massive anti-Russia propaganda campaign by the Biden administration and its NATO allies, along with their associated media outlets. Without an autopsy, let alone a fact-grounded analysis of the circumstances of Navalny’s death, the unified position from the NATO powers is: “Putin killed Navalny.”
US President Joe Biden declared on Friday that “there is no doubt that the death of Navalny is a consequence of something Putin and his thugs did.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken proclaimed that it “underscores the weakness and rot at the heart of the system that Putin has built. Russia is responsible for this.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, greeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris to sign a military alliance and offering him hundreds of millions of euros in aid, denounced Russia. Macron stressed his “anger” and “indignation” at Navalny’s death.
At the opening of the Munich Security Conference Friday, Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, was invited to speak after the news broke. She was given a standing ovation from the assembled politicians and military officers from the NATO countries as she declared that, if news of Navalny’s death were true, “I want Putin, his entire entourage, Putin’s friends, his government to know that they will bear responsibility for what they did to our country, to my family, to my husband.”
Amidst this propaganda offensive, it is first necessary to stress that there is no precise knowledge as to how Navalny died. Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service reported that Navalny lost consciousness after a walk, and efforts to revive him were not successful. Navalny, according to these reports, may have died of a blood clot.
This would not absolve the Russian government of culpability. Navalny died in a Russian prison, and the Putin regime was responsible for his well-being and safety. This, however, does not warrant the claim, in the absence of evidence, that Navalny was murdered.
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