Joe Biden Meets With Alexei Navalny’s Widow And Daughter

President Joe Biden met today with Yulia and Dasha Navalnaya, the wife and daughter of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who Russian authorities said died in prison last week.

“Today, I met with Yulia and Dasha Navalnaya – Aleksey Navalny’s loved ones – to express my condolences for their devastating loss,” Biden said in a post on X/Twitter. “Aleksey’s legacy of courage will live on in Yulia and Dasha, and the countless people across Russia fighting for democracy and human rights.”

The White House said that the president also told them that the administration would announce major new sanctions against Russia in response to Navalny’s death.

The meeting took place in San Francisco, as Biden has been on a West Coast fundraising swing.

At an event at the home of Gordon Getty on Wednesday evening, Biden told donors, “We have a crazy SOB like that guy Putin and others, and we always have to worry about nuclear conflict.  But the existential threat to humanity is climate.”

According to Reuters, a Kremlin spokesman said that Biden’s remark was “probably some kind of attempt to look like a Hollywood cowboy. But honestly I don’t think it’s possible.”

Per Reuters, Putin told state television, with a slight smile, that “we are ready to work with any president. But I believe that for us, Biden is a more preferable president for Russia, and judging by what he has just said, I am absolutely right.”