Even Vladimir Putin's most prominent critic,
Alexei Navalny, commented on US politics just months before he
died.
The New York Times has published letters between Navalny and
his closest friends as he struggled to stay connected to
the outside world while suffering in prison.
The Russian dissident, who just died this past week and
in prison,
called Trump's agenda for a second term really scary.
All this breaking, as the Kremlin says it will not
accept demands from the European Union for an independent investigation.
Into Navalny's death. Our Patrick Revill is in Kiev.
For more So Patrick, just talk to us about these
letters.
Hi, Kira. Yeah, as you say,
The New York Times has published a number of letters
that were sent between Alexei Navalny and his colleagues and
some of his supporters.
And they do offer this fascinating glimpse into his world.
You know, he talks about a lot of things.
He talks about books. He talks about life in prison.
He talks about life outside of prison because he was
very fascinated by what was going on in international politics.
And I've been talking with Yevgeny Feldman,
who was Navalny's photographer for years and who.
Sent some of these letters and they often discussed American
politics in some of these letters.
And as you say, Navalny in one of them writes
that Trump's electoral agenda was very scary.
He also wrote though that he feared that if President
Biden suffered some kind of health problem then obviously Trump
could be elected and that do the Democrats not know
that. Many of these letters also though just talk about
his life in prison,
he says at one point he says that the guards
there,
if they were ordered to provide him with caviar they
would or if they ordered to strangle him in his
cell,
they would just showing the level of dehumanisation in.
The prison.
So the White House is now promising major sanctions on
Russia in response to the death of Navalny.
What do you think we can expect?
Yeah. The White House a little while ago has said
that it will impose,
quote, major sanctions on Russia and saying that Russia is
responsible for Navalny's death.
But the question is what can these sanctions be?
Because, as most experts are noting,
there are already very severe sanctions on Russia because of
the war here in Ukraine.
I mean, the problem with those sanctions is that right
now they're not sufficiently enforced and there are many,
many gaps. And Russia has managed to adapt to them
to a great degree.
What a lot of supporters of Navalny are saying is
that the US and European countries should now take this
$300 billion of Russian assets that have been frozen because
of the war and should be given,
and they should be given to Ukraine as a punishment
for Russia.
So they're saying that that would be a much more
painful sanction and a much better way to honour Alexei
Navalny's name.
All right. Patrick, Revel there in Key Forest,
Patrick. Thank you.