Updated Monday, February 19, 2024-18:15

  • Russia Navalny's widow calls on Russians to fight the Kremlin and will continue his legacy

  • USA-Russia Why the murder of Alexei Navalny is an example of Putin's power in the face of the advances of his allies in the United States

  • Direct witness Russians challenge the police in tributes to Navalny: "He was a very brave man, we had to come"

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the

Government of Spain

has summoned the Russian ambassador in Madrid,

Yuri Klimenko

, for consultations this Monday, following the death in prison of the Russian opponent Alexei Navalny last Friday, according to diplomatic sources. The Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, said this Monday that Navalny's death is "totally unjustified and should never have occurred", and assured that the "ultimate person responsible is evidently the one who unjustly put him in prison for political reasons."

Albares met in Brussels with Navalny's widow,

Yulia Navalnaya

, along with the rest of the foreign ministers of the European Union, and asked that Russia clarify the causes of death as soon as possible "in a credible manner," Efe reports.

"I have expressed my support for Yulia Navalnaya, just as I express it to so many defenders of democracy and freedoms. The Government of Spain always, in all parts of the world, is on the side of those who defend democracy, freedom and human rights," the minister said in a press conference at the end of the meeting of community ministers.

To honor the memory of the opponent, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, has proposed that the European human rights sanctions regime be named after Alexei Navalny.

The call by the Russian ambassador in Madrid also coincides with the confirmation that the Russian pilot Maxim Kuzminov, who deserted last August to surrender to the Ukrainian army with the helicopter he was piloting, has been found dead in Spain, according to intelligence sources. Ukrainian military quoted by the

Kyiv Post

.

On Monday morning, Germany did the same: it called the Russian ambassador in Berlin for consultations. "The inhumane detention conditions demonstrate the brutal way in which Russian justice acts against those who think differently and with what means President Putin represses freedom of opinion," said a spokesperson for the Ministry, Kathrin Deschauer.