Secretary of State Antony Blinken has rejected claims by Russia's Foreign Ministry that the United States is behind a series of protests demanding the release of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny and said he's "deeply disturbed by the violent crackdown" on the protests and the arrests of thousands of people.
"The Russian government makes a big mistake if it believes that this is about us," Blinken told NBC News' Andrea Mitchell in an interview Sunday. "It's about them. It's about the government. It's about the frustration that the Russian people have with corruption, with autocracy, and I think they need to look inward, not outward."
Russia's Foreign Ministry has claimed through Twitter that the United States has staged a "gross intervention in Russia's affairs" and accused Washington of trying to destabilize the situation.
Navalny has remained under arrest since Jan. 17, when he returned to Moscow after recovering for five months in Germany from nerve gas poisoning, for which he has blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin's government.
Navalny's organization has been asking Blinken and the White House for sanctions against Putin's backers in hopes of pressuring him to release the political dissident.
Blinken said he's in the process of reviewing the Navalny issue, along with other Russian actions in recent years. He wouldn't commit to specific sanctions but said that President Joe Biden could not have been more clear in his call with Putin.
Meanwhile, more than 4,500 protesters were arrested on Sunday alone during protests in cities across Russia, reports Time, quoting a monitoring group.
Courts have also jailed several of Navalny's associates over the past week, including his brother Oleg, top aide Lyubov Sobol, and three other people, who were placed under a two-month house arrest Friday. Navalny's wife was also arrested Sunday while protesting in Moscow.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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