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The US administration has reaffirmed its calls for Russia to immediately release political opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his supporters who have been detained for protesting his incarceration. On Monday, the White House press secretary Jen Psaki informed reporters and said, “We call on Russian authorities to release all those detained for exercising their universal rights and for the immediate and unconditional release of Alexei Navalny”. The new president’s forceful denunciation of Russia’s newest manifestation of political repression marks a sharp departure from his predecessor. The former president Trump didn’t say in September 2020 that Navalny had been poisoned by Russian government agents. Psaki also reiterated calls for Russia to cooperate with the international investigation into Navalny’s poisoning in August 2020 and to credibly explain the use of a chemical weapon, Novichok, on one of its own citizens.

Point to be noted that Navalny has recovered from the attack after treatment in a German hospital, returned to Moscow on a flight on 17^th January, and was promptly arrested. He is the most popular opposition political leader to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Thousands of pro-Navalny protesters were detained by police over the weekend for demonstrating against his arrest, but most have been released. Trump jumped on reporters in September for asking him about Navalny’s poisoning and whether the Russian government had been behind the attack. He said that they should be more focused on the wrongdoings of China than Russia. Trump said, “It’s tragic. It’s terrible, it shouldn’t happen. We haven’t had any proof yet, but I will take a look”.

Last year, Trump was also criticized for failing to confront Putin over reports that Russia had placed bounties on the heads of American and other western troops in Afghanistan. It is noteworthy that Trump denied the bounty scheme allegation between Russia and the Taliban. The New York Times reported that an intelligence report about the scheme was included in the President’s Daily Brief of national security matters at least twice. President Biden has tasked the US intelligence community with compiling an official assessment of at least 4 areas of Russia’s malign activity; the massive SolarWinds hack that breached several US federal agencies and global supply chain data. On Monday, Psaki said, “That review is ongoing”. On Saturday, a wave of protests swept across Russia. At least 100,000 took to the streets of more than a hundred towns and cities over eleven time zones.