Biden meets Alexei Navalny widow, daughter during California trip

US News

By Samuel Chamberlain

President Biden met Thursday in California with the widow and daughter of the late Russian activist Alexei Navalny — before appearing to botch the name of the heroic opposition leader’s wife in a later statement to the press.

Biden’s meeting with Yulia Navalnaya and the couple’s daughter Dasha Navalnaya offered the first confirmation of Yulia’s whereabouts six days after the announcement of Alexei’s death in an Arctic prison.

“This morning I had the honor of meeting with Alexei Navalny’s wife and daughter, and to state the obvious, he was a man of incredible courage and it’s amazing how his wife and daughter are emulating that,” Biden, 81, told reporters in San Francisco. 

“We are going to be announcing the sanctions against [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, who is responsible for his death, tomorrow,” the gaffe-prone commander-in-chief continued.

“But one thing that was made clear to me is that Yolanda is gonna, she’s gonna continue the fight he had underway. So we’re not letting up.”

The White House did not immediately comment on the apparent name mixup, nor did officials dispute that Biden had slipped up. 

Poor audio quality can garble words and the statement’s setting — in a hotel parking garage with idling vehicles — had print journalists struggling to hear Biden, though the televised audio seemed to clearly reflect an embarrassing error.

Biden is seeking re-election in November despite surveys showing an overwhelming number of voters — 86%, according to an ABC/Ipsos poll released Feb. 11 — believe he’s too old to serve another four-year term.

Yulia, an elegant 47-year-old economist married to Alexei, also 47, since 2000, is widely seen as a possible successor to her husband as Russia’s foremost democracy advocate.

Dasha Navalnaya is a student at nearby Stanford University.

In a statement shortly after the private meeting, the White House said Biden “express[ed] his heartfelt condolences” to the women “for their terrible loss.”

Biden also “expressed his admiration for … Navalny’s extraordinary courage and his legacy of fighting against corruption and for a free and democratic Russia in which the rule of law applies equally to everyone,” the statement said.

As the president referenced, the White House is set to announce a new package of sanctions Friday against Russia in response to the death of Navalny, 47, as well as Moscow’s ongoing prosecution of its invasion of Ukraine.

Biden said in 2021 that he had warned Putin there would be “devastating” consequences if Navalny died in custody, but told reporters hours after the dissident’s reported death: “That was three years ago. In the meantime, they faced a hell of a lot of consequences.”

On Tuesday, Biden clarified, “I told you we’d be announcing sanctions on Russia. We’ll have a major package announced on Friday, and I’ll be happy to sit with you all while doing that.”

The White House has gradually stepped up sanctions on Russian officials and associated businesspeople since the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022 — after Biden also warned of dire consequences if Putin proceeded with an anticipated attack.

So far, however, a pair of Russian billionaires associated with Biden family business ventures have been left off the growing sanctions list, despite their past connections to the Kremlin and Russia’s defense industry.