U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said that if the news about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's death is confirmed, "Russia is responsible," and it would be a "further sign of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's brutality."
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Harris said it was "terrible news, which we are working to confirm."
Russian media reported on Feb. 16 that Navalny died in prison. Navalny was being held in a penal colony in Russia's far northern Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District.
According to the prison service, Navalny supposedly lost consciousness and could not be revived.
The penal colony that Navalny was held in is located in a remote settlement north of the Arctic Circle, with "tough conditions" and limited access to letter delivery, according to Zhdanov, the head of the Anti-Corruption Foundation established by Navalny.
Navalny was previously held in the IK-6 Melekhovo high-security prison in Russia's Vladimir Oblast.
Navalny had been serving a 2.5-year prison sentence since 2021 and a separate 9-year sentence on fraud charges since 2022.
A Russian court also sentenced Navalny to 19 years in a maximum security prison in August 2023 on extremism charges for creating the Anti-Corruption Foundation.
All these cases have been recognized as politically motivated and fabricated by international human rights organizations and governments.
Navalny was poisoned in Russia in 2020 and flown for treatment in Germany. German doctors said he had been poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent — a chemical weapon produced by the Russian government.
The Insider, Bellingcat, CNN, and Der Spiegel published an investigation according to which Navalny had been poisoned by agents of Russia’s Federal Security Service. They also identified the agents' names.
Read also: BREAKING: Russian opposition leader Navalny reportedly dies in prison