Navalny’s Death Shocks World Leaders in Munich

Welcome back to a special on-the-road edition of Foreign Policy’s SitRep as we report from the Munich Security Conference (MSC), crammed into a glitzy hotel alongside hundreds of foreign dignitaries and national security experts.

Here’s what’s on tap for the day: Shocking news of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny’s death in prison, warnings over Russia’s long-term designs on NATO’s eastern flank, and closed-door diplomatic talks on the Middle East crisis.

Munich Reacts to Navalny’s Death

On Friday, news broke that jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, had died at the Polar Wolf penal colony in Russia, sending shockwaves through the security conference in Munich where many of Navalny’s friends and supporters, as well as his wife and top Biden administration officials, are convening.

“Upon hearing the horrible news, I didn’t know if I should have immediately flown to my family or speak out,” Yulia Navalnaya, his wife, said in a last-minute address to the MSC, right after U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris exited the stage. “But then I thought, ‘What would Alexei do?’ and I’m sure he would be here,” she added.

Navalnaya’s remarks were greeted with a standing ovation from the somber crowd. “If this is true, I want Putin and everyone around him to know that they will be held accountable for everything they did to our country, to my family,” Navalnaya said.

Confusion and shock. At first, there was confusion at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof where the MSC is taking place, as news alerts about a cryptic post from Russia’s prison service saying that the dissident felt unwell after a walk, lost consciousness, and later died began circulating. In the hotel’s atrium, everyone’s necks craned down to look at their phones. Slowly, the grim realization of Navalny’s death set in.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, when a small gaggle of journalists informed him of the news. McFaul was a longtime friend of Navalny’s and had just come from visiting the family. “Navalny was my friend. Forgive me for not being able to answer journalists’ questions dispassionately right now,” he wrote later in a post on X.

Navalny, a former lawyer who highlighted Kremlin corruption on a popular blog before he entered opposition politics more than two decades ago, survived a previous assassination attempt when he was poisoned by Russian security services with the chemical agent Novichok in August 2020.

For more on the opposition leader’s life and his impact on Russia’s besieged democratic movement, read our colleague Amy Mackinnon’s obituary of Navalny.

“Russia is responsible.” Harris, the keynote speaker in Munich, said the Biden administration was still working to confirm whether Navalny had indeed died. “Whatever story they tell, let us be clear: Russia is responsible,” Harris said.

The question now is what comes next. In 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden warned Putin that Russia would face “devastating” consequences if Navalny died in prison. Already, reporters here have asked U.S. officials about what Washington’s response will be.

Biden gave his initial answer later in the day at the White House, and it’s one that’s not likely to satisfy Navalny’s incensed friends and supporters.

“That was three years ago. In the meantime, they faced a hell of a lot of consequences,” Biden said in response to questions about his 2021 comments. He cited steep Russian casualty figures in Ukraine and “great sanctions across the board.”

When asked if he’d roll out new sanctions on Russia, Biden gave a vague answer: “We’re looking at a whole number of options. That’s all I’ll say right now.”

Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas told SitRep that the West should work on tightening existing sanctions on Russia and put more secondary sanctions in place so that countries such as India that are courting the West while still buying Russian oil can no longer buy crude from the Kremlin.

U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron, meanwhile, echoed comments from Navalny’s wife, saying, “Putin should be accountable for what has happened. No one should doubt the dreadful nature of his regime.”

Beyond Navalny. After her comments about the Russian opposition leader’s death, Harris used her podium at Munich to make an election-year pitch for the Biden administration’s foreign policy, especially in the wake of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments over the weekend that he would let the Russians “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies who are slow to boost defense spending.

(NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said this week that 18 of 31 NATO member states will hit the alliance’s target of spending the equivalent of 2 percent of GDP on defense.)

Harris even had a campaign bumper sticker line ready-made for the moment. “Isolation is not insulation,” she said to the critics of the Biden administration’s globally minded foreign policy. “America cannot retreat. America must stand strong for democracy.”

In the eyes of most MSC conferencegoers, however, there’s a big, Congress-sized roadblock standing in the way of that.

The next tranche of $60 billion in U.S. military aid to Ukraine, as well as aid for Israel and Taiwan, is stalled in Congress as the House of Representatives goes on recess until the end of the month. Harris and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken thus face an uphill battle in trying to reassure allies about those U.S. commitments.

Both Harris and Blinken are set to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tomorrow. “We will work to secure critical weapons and resources that Ukraine badly needs,” Harris said. “The failure to do so would be a gift to Vladimir Putin.”

“If we stand by while an aggressor invades its neighbor with impunity, they will keep going,” Harris added. “And in the case of Putin, that means all of Europe will be threatened.”

Back at the White House, Biden was less diplomatic about the congressional impasse.

“It’s about time they step up now, don’t you think?” he said of Congress. “Instead of going on a two-week vacation? … Two weeks! What are they thinking? My God, this is bizarre, and it’s just reinforcing all the concern and almost—I won’t say panic—but real concern about the United States being a reliable ally.”

On the Button 

What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.

Camp David-lite. A group of top Western and Middle Eastern diplomats, including Cameron and other European and Gulf foreign ministers, is privately convening on Friday evening on the sidelines of the MSC to discuss the ongoing crisis in Gaza and whether there are any off-ramps to the current Israel-Hamas war, three officials in Munich confirmed to SitRep.

U.S.-led crisis management efforts are at an impasse: Negotiations over the release of Israeli hostages in Palestinian militant group Hamas’s custody have broken down, and Israel is readying for a potential offensive against the Gazan city of Rafah to root out Hamas, a prospect that top U.N. officials warn will bring new levels of devastation to the Palestinian territory. European allies, meanwhile, are being increasingly open in their condemnation of Israel for how it has carried out its campaign in Gaza, even as the United States continues to stand by its closest Middle Eastern ally.

Tests incoming. The Russian military could be ready to test NATO’s borders within three to four years, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna told SitRep in an interview at the MSC on Friday. His comments mirror warnings from other top European leaders, including Denmark’s defense minister, on what Russia’s plans of conquest might be after Ukraine should Moscow win there.

Though Russia’s conventional military capabilities have been degraded after two years of full-scale war in Ukraine, Putin is making plans to reform the country’s military and could also strike with hybrid attacks, including in the cyber realm. “Testing NATO is not even a question,” Tsahkna said. “Putin cannot stop.”

Pyrrhic victory. One of the most closely watched developments in Ukraine is the battle for Avdiivka, a front-line town in eastern Ukraine that’s become the scene of fierce fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces. Russia appears poised to take the town after a grueling battle of attrition, though the fight is still ongoing.

Even if Russia takes the town, top defense officials in Munich say, it will be a Pyrrhic victory. Anusauskas told SitRep that he was confident any Russian gains near Avdiivka are not likely to result in a major Russian breakthrough. “I don’t think there will be a radical change in the situation,” he said, via an interpreter. Part of the reason is the sheer scale of Russian losses for such minimal gains, Anusauskas said. The rate of losses for Ukrainian forces in northern Ukraine, for example, is 13 times smaller than for the Russian side, he said.

Snapshot 

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris (R) is presented with a giant cookie by Bavarian Premier Markus Soeder (L) at the airport while arriving for the 60th Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, on Feb. 15. (Photo by Tobias SCHWARZ/AFP)

Overseen at Munich

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and former U.S. climate envoy John Kerry were seen palling around in the front row before Harris’s speech—apparently before news broke of Navalny’s death.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was spotted schmoozing with conferencegoers outside the main conference room at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof bar between panel sessions.

Wait a minute. “It’s like the line at Andrews,” remarked one U.S. military official, as Harris’s arrival forced a host of four-star generals and high-ranking diplomats to be stopped at the doors of the main conference hall to wait in line for Harris to pass through.

It’s a reference to when Biden’s or Harris’s departure from Andrews Air Force Base, the outgoing airport of choice for the White House, snags other officials in transit (One of your SitRep hosts has been stuck in that line before while traveling with the Pentagon.). Among those stuck in line trying to get out the door in Munich: U.S. Africa Command chief Gen. Michael Langley.

Put on Your Radar

Saturday’s MSC program, in Munich time (GMT+1):

9 a.m.: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz addresses the conference.

9:30 a.m.: Zelensky speaks to the conference, moderated by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour

10 a.m.: Stoltenberg, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, and U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts speak on a panel about Ukraine and the future of transatlantic security, moderated by Amanpour.

12 p.m.: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi addresses the conference.

4 p.m.: Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, and U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and others speak on a panel titled “Fighting Fatigue: Whatever It Takes for Ukraine’s Victory.”

7 p.m.: Israeli President Isaac Herzog addresses the conference.

Quote of the Day

“Fundamentally, Putin is a thug, a low level intelligence officer who got by chance the power. He is behaving as such, killing opponents, using brutal force and blatantly lying.”

—Former French Ambassador to the United States Gérard Araud reacts on X to the reported death of Navalny.