Putin, Vladimir V

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      Navalny Allies Say He Was About to Be Freed in a Prisoner Exchange

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      A top aide to the Russian opposition leader who died this month said he could have been among several inmates swapped. The claim could not be independently confirmed.Aides to Aleksei A. Navalny asserted on Monday that the Russian opposition leader had been on the verge of being freed in a prisoner exchange with the West before he died earlier this month.Western officials were in advanced talks with the Kremlin on a deal that would have released Mr. Navalny along with two Americans in Russian prison, a top aide to the dead opposition leader, Maria Pevchikh, said in a video released on the Navalny team’s YouTube channel.As part of that deal, Ms. Pevchikh said, Germany would have released Vadim Krasikov, the man convicted of killing a former Chechen separatist fighter in a Berlin park in 2019. Mr. Putin praised Mr. Krasikov in his interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson this month, describing the convicted assassin as having been motivated by “patriotic sentiments.”Ms. Pevchikh’s assertions about a pending deal could not be independently confirmed. There was no immediate comment from any of the parties reportedly involved in the trade described by Ms. Pevchikh. A Kremlin spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.“Navalny was supposed to be free in the coming days,” Ms. Pevchikh, the chairwoman of Mr. Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said in the video. “I received confirmation that negotiations were at the final stage on the evening of Feb. 15.”American officials had acknowledged that German officials were asking for Mr. Navalny to be released in any deal that would have freed Mr. Krasikov, though they did not indicate a deal was close. A German government spokeswoman declined to comment when asked about the Navalny team’s assertions at a news conference on Monday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Russia, Knowing That Her Son Is Dead, and Waiting for Him Anyway

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      She watched, distressed, as Aleksei was sent off to war. Now, 14 months after he died in eastern Ukraine, Yulia Seleznyova holds a sliver of hope for a miracle.When Yulia Seleznyova walks around her home city in Russia, she scrutinizes everyone passing by in the hope that she will lock eyes with her son Aleksei.She last heard from him on New Year’s Eve 2022, when he sent holiday greetings from the school in eastern Ukraine that his unit of recently mobilized soldiers was using as a headquartersThe Ukrainian military hit the school with U.S.-supplied HIMARS rockets on New Year’s Day. Russian authorities acknowledged dozens of deaths, though pro-Russian military bloggers and Ukrainian authorities estimated that the real number was in the hundreds.Aleksei was not recognized in the official death toll because not a single fragment of his body was identified in the rubble after the strike. Ms. Seleznyova was left with nothing to bury, and, she says, no closure. But it has also left a small shred of hope for a miracle.“I still go around town sometimes, with my eyes wide open, thinking maybe he’s sitting somewhere, but he doesn’t remember us, but maybe we’re there in his subconscious mind,” Ms. Seleznyova said in an interview late last year in her one-room apartment in Tolyatti, an industrial city on the Volga River that is home to Russia’s largest car manufacturer.“Sometimes I think maybe he lost his memory and even got married somewhere in Ukraine, but he doesn’t remember us,” she said. “That he’s just shellshocked.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Alexei Navalny Inspired Me to Start Pussy Riot. His Vision Is Immortal.

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      Aleksei Navalny spent most of his life working toward a free Russia. Since his death, the Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova has been reflecting on her friend’s legacy. In this audio essay, she calls on the West to take seriously the threat that Vladimir Putin poses to global peace.(A full transcript of this audio essay will be available within 24 hours of publication in the audio player above.)Illustration by Akshita Chandra/The New York Times; Photograph by Mladen Antonov/AFP, via Getty ImagesThis episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Jillian Weinberger. It was edited by Kaari Pitkin and Annie-Rose Strasser. Mixing by Carole Sabouraud. Original music by Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, X (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram. More

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      U.S. Imposes Major New Sanctions on Russia, Targeting Finance and Defense

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      The Biden administration, responding to the death of Aleksei A. Navalny, unveiled its largest sanctions package to date as the war in Ukraine enters its third year.The United States on Friday unleashed its most extensive package of sanctions on Russia since the invasion of Ukraine two years ago, targeting Russia’s financial sector and military-industrial complex in a broad effort to degrade the Kremlin’s war machine.The sweeping sanctions come as the war enters its third year, and exactly one week after the death of the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, for which the Biden administration blames President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. With Congress struggling to reach an agreement on providing more aid to Ukraine, the United States has become increasingly reliant on financial tools to slow Russia’s ability to restock its military supplies and to put pressure on its economy.Announcing the sanctions on Friday, President Biden reiterated his calls on Congress to provide more funding to Ukraine before it is too late.“The failure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will not be forgotten,” he said in a statement.The president added that the sanctions would further restrict Russia’s energy revenues and crack down on its sanctions evasion efforts across multiple continents.“If Putin does not pay the price for his death and destruction, he will keep going,” Mr. Biden said. “And the costs to the United States — along with our NATO allies and partners in Europe and around the world — will rise.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Warns Allies Russia Could Put a Nuclear Weapon Into Orbit This Year

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      The American assessments are divided, however, and President Vladimir Putin denied having such an intention, saying that Russia was “categorically against” it.American intelligence agencies have told their closest European allies that if Russia is going to launch a nuclear weapon into orbit, it will probably do so this year — but that it might instead launch a harmless “dummy” warhead into orbit to leave the West guessing about its capabilities.The assessment came as American intelligence officials conducted a series of rushed, classified briefings for their NATO and Asian allies, as details of the American assessment of Russia’s intentions began to leak out.The American intelligence agencies are sharply divided in their opinion about what President Vladimir V. Putin is planning, and on Tuesday Mr. Putin rejected the accusation that he intended to place a nuclear weapon in orbit and his defense minister said the intelligence warning was manufactured in an effort to get Congress to authorize more aid for Ukraine.During a meeting with the defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, Mr. Putin said Russia had always been “categorically against” placing nuclear weapons in space, and had respected the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits weaponizing space, including the placement of nuclear weapons in orbit.“We not only call for the observance of the existing agreements that we have in this area,” he was quoted as saying by the Russian state media, “but we have proposed many times to strengthen these joint efforts.”On Wednesday, Mr. Putin reinforced the central role he believes Russia’s nuclear arsenal plays in the country’s defenses: Visiting an aviation factory, he climbed into the bomb bay of a Tu-160M strategic bomber, the most modern in the Russian fleet.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Again Compares Himself to Navalny While Discussing Legal Woes

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      Former President Donald J. Trump continued to liken himself to the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny during a town hall in South Carolina on Tuesday, at one point directly comparing a civil fraud judgment against him to the case of an anticorruption activist who died in a Russian prison last week.Halfway through the town hall, the host, Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, asked Mr. Trump how he would come up with the $450 million penalty issued by a New York judge last week.“It is a form of — Navalny,” Mr. Trump said. “It is a form of communism or fascism.”The remark came after a prolonged discussion in which Mr. Trump continued to suggest that his legal travails were somehow equivalent to those of Mr. Navalny, a staunch opponent of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia who was politically persecuted and imprisoned on charges that supporters believed were fabricated in an attempt to silence him.Mr. Trump did not specifically address Mr. Navalny’s death until Monday, when he posted on social media that the situation was reminiscent of his legal problems. The former president faces four criminal cases, all of which he has attributed to President Biden, although Mr. Biden has no oversight over them.During the town hall, Ms. Ingraham asked Mr. Trump to expand on those comments. The former president commended Mr. Navalny for his courage, calling his death “very sad” and saying that Mr. Navalny “was a very brave guy.” He also expressed his belief that Mr. Navalny — who returned to Russia in 2021 from Germany, where he had been recovering from being poisoned — would have been better served by “staying away and talking from outside of the country.”But Mr. Trump then said that what had happened to Mr. Navalny was happening “in our country too.” He went on to mention his four indictments, which he said were “all because of the fact that I am in politics.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Yulia Navalnaya’s X Account Is Suspended and Then Restored

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      An account created by Aleksei A. Navalny’s widow on Monday disappeared and then returned hours later. The social media company said the suspension had been a mistake.The social media platform X temporarily suspended on Tuesday an account created by Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Aleksei A. Navalny, and then restored it, saying it had been mistakenly flagged by its automated security protocols.Ms. Navalnaya opened the account on Monday to announce that she would continue her husband’s work advocating for a free, peaceful and democratic Russia in the wake of her husband’s death in a remote Arctic prison. More than 90,000 users followed the account in its first 24 hours.But on Tuesday, the account and its activity suddenly disappeared, replaced by the words “Account suspended” and a note that X — the social media company formerly known as Twitter — “suspends accounts which violate the X Rules.”“Our platform’s defense mechanism against manipulation and spam mistakenly flagged @yulia_navalnaya as violating our rules,” X’s safety team wrote on the platform later on Tuesday. “We unsuspended the account as soon as we became aware of the error, and will be updating the defense.”Earlier in the day, Ms. Navalnaya wrote on the social network Telegram that “Twitter has imposed restrictions on my account, which I opened yesterday.”“According to the Shadowban Test service, my tweets are not shown in searches, and if you enter my name in the search bar, my page is not recommended among recommendations,” she wrote.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Breaks Silence on Navalny Death, but Doesn’t Condemn Putin

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      His winding social media post on Monday contained no reference to Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, who has been widely condemned after the death of one of his most vocal critics, Aleksei A. Navalny.Days after the death of the Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny was first reported, Donald J. Trump broke his silence in a social media post on Monday that barely mentioned Mr. Navalny and that did not condemn President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Instead, he used Mr. Navalny’s death to suggest that his own legal battles amounted to political persecution.It was a note he hit first on Sunday, when he shared screenshots of an opinion essay that compared his relationship with President Biden to the one between Mr. Navalny and Mr. Putin.“The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country,” the former president wrote on Truth Social on Monday, using an alternative spelling of Mr. Navalny’s given name. He pointed to what he called “CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction.”But the winding social media post contained no reference to Mr. Putin, who has drawn widespread condemnation from politicians in the United States and abroad amid speculation that he or the Russian government had a hand in Mr. Navalny’s death. Instead, Mr. Trump cited “Open Borders, Rigged Elections, and Grossly Unfair Courtroom Decisions” in casting the U.S., in all capital letters, as a “nation in decline, a failing nation.”Mr. Trump, who has been indicted in four criminal cases and is facing 91 felony counts, was ordered on Friday to pay about $450 million, after a New York judge found in his civil fraud case that he had conspired to manipulate his net worth. He has repeatedly tried to blame Mr. Biden for his legal problems, though Mr. Biden has no purview over the cases.Nikki Haley, Mr. Trump’s rival in the Republican presidential primary and his former ambassador to the United Nations, attacked him over his response.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More