Biden meets with Alexey Navalny's wife and daughter to express "heartfelt condolences"

Washington — President Biden met with the wife and daughter of late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny in California on Thursday to express his "heartfelt condolences" over his death, the White House said.

"The President expressed his admiration for Aleksey 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 White House said, using a different spelling of Navalny's first name in a summary of the meeting with Yulia and Dasha Navalnaya. "The President emphasized that Aleksey's legacy will carry on through people across Russia and around the world mourning his loss and fighting for freedom, democracy, and human rights."

The White House posted photos of the meeting on social media, showing the president embracing Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny's widow. Yulia Navalnaya, who lives in exile from Russia, posted on Instagram earlier in the day that she was visiting her daughter, a student at Stanford University.