Shock and fury at a conference of world leaders over the death of Alexei Navalny

MUNICH — Shock, grief and then fury rippled through the hallways and conference rooms of the Munich Security Conference on Friday as the news of Alexei Navalny’s death spread, announced by authorities in the Siberian prison where he’d been taken late last year.

MUNICH — Shock, grief and then fury rippled through the hallways and conference rooms of the Munich Security Conference on Friday as the news of Alexei Navalny’s death spread, announced by authorities in the Siberian prison where he’d been taken late last year.

It did not come as a surprise — Navalny had escaped previous attempts on his life, including by poisoning by a military nerve agent in 2020. That he had defied death so often perhaps made it all the more difficult to absorb the reality that President Vladimir Putin’s relentless challenger was most likely gone.

In the halls of the conference, Germany’s Ambassador to the United States Emily Haber, who previously served in Moscow and knew Navalny well, reacted with shock.

“Oh, no! We were working on getting him out,” she said.

The news came as Vice President Kamala Harris was beginning a scheduled speech, which she started off by addressing the news. “If true, it would be a further sign of Putin’s brutality,” she said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/shock-fury-world-leaders-death-alexei-navalny-rcna139229

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