{"id":10431,"date":"2021-01-19T17:29:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T17:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=151978"},"modified":"2021-01-19T17:29:00","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T17:29:00","slug":"in-a-response-to-navalnys-arrest-clues-to-bidens-russia-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/19\/in-a-response-to-navalnys-arrest-clues-to-bidens-russia-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"In A Response To Navalny’s Arrest, Clues to Biden’s Russia Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Less than two hours after Aleksei Navalny was detained at passport control at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on January 17, the man who will hold one of the most important positions in the new White House made a statement on Twitter:<\/p>\n

“Mr. Navalny should be immediately released, and the perpetrators of the outrageous attack on his life must be held accountable,” Jake Sullivan, who will become President Joe Biden’s national security adviser after the January 20 inauguration, wrote<\/a><\/strong>. “The Kremlin’s attacks on Mr. Navalny are not just a violation of human rights, but an affront to the Russian people who want their voices heard.”<\/p>\n

Sullivan’s expression of support for the Russian anti-corruption activist was followed a few hours later by a statement<\/a><\/strong> from the departing U.S. secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, who has frequently bashed Moscow on its human rights record, arms-control violations, and other issues.<\/p>\n

But the speed with which a top official of the incoming Biden administration offered a public statement on Navalny, who was detained and jailed after returning to Russia for the first time since being hospitalized for exposure to a powerful nerve agent from the Novichok group, was itself unusual.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Sullivan hadn’t even formally started his job yet.<\/p>\n

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Incoming national security adviser Jake Sullivan was quick to comment on Navalny’s arrest.<\/span><\/div>\n

Add to that the fact that the Biden administration has already pledged to take a different course from the departing administration, where President Donald Trump’s conciliatory remarks often clashed with otherwise tough talk and punitive sanctions from other U.S. government agencies and officials, including Pompeo.<\/p>\n

“The incoming Biden administration has long made it clear that it would pay more attention to human rights than Trump has. So the Biden team was ready for” Navalny’s arrest, Thomas Graham, the top Russia official in the White House under President George W. Bush, said.<\/p>\n

“We can expect more criticism of Russia’s human rights record, but that will come with an offer for serious dialogue on strategic stability, as part of a policy that will likely be billed as ‘principled pragmatism’ with Moscow,” he told RFE\/RL by e-mail.<\/p>\n

During a hastily organized hearing at a suburban Moscow police station the morning after his detention, Navalny was ordered held for 30 days pending a court ruling on whether he violated terms of his parole while he was recuperating in Germany. The parole condition related to an earlier conviction on financial fraud charges he contends were fabricated.<\/p>\n

Ever defiant, Navalny has called on his supporters to take to the streets in protest<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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\"Lone<\/p>\n

\"Lone<\/span><\/a> Photo Gallery:<\/span><\/p>\n

Lone Voices: Russians Hold Single-Person Protests After Navalny’s Arrest<\/h4>\n
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Single-person protests — the largest allowed by law in Russia — decried the arrest of Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny. Navalny has been placed in a cell in Moscow’s notorious Matrosskaya Tishina detention center after a judge at a hastily arranged hearing ruled to keep the Kremlin critic in custody for 30 days following his dramatic airport arrest upon his arrival from Germany. He arrived late on January 17 from Berlin, where he had been recovering from a poison attack in August that Navalny says was ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n