Russia’s opposition leader Alexei Navalny has congratulated President-elect Joe Biden on his victory, while Russian President Vladimir Putin has not yet made any congratulatory remarks.
Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election on Saturday by the Associated Press and the national television network as they crossed the 270-vote threshold. President Donald Trump has refused to confess, claiming baseless that Democrats won by widespread voter fraud. While many world leaders have congratulated Biden and Harris, Putin has not.
“Congratulations to Vijay and @Kamalaharis for the victory and to the Americans for defining new leadership in free and fair elections. This is a privilege that is not available to all countries. Russia and the United States hope for a new level of cooperation between the two countries,” Navalny wrote in a Twitter post on Sunday. .
Congratulations for Jobiden And AmaKamalaHarris On victory and on giving Americans a definition of new leadership in a free and fair election. This is a privilege that is not available to all countries. Russia and the U.S. Meanwhile, there is hope for a new level of cooperation.
– Alexei Novel (@ Novel) November 8, 2020
Newsweek The Kremlin as well as Washington Washington D.C. for comment. Arrived at the Russian embassy in, but they did not immediately respond.
Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent in August. He is currently in Germany recovering. Putin’s government has denied responsibility for the poisoning, while Germany has threatened to impose sanctions on Russia if it does not conduct a full and transparent investigation. According to Biden, Navalny has directly accused Putin.
Biden said in a statement posted on his campaign website: “Once again, the Kremlin has used a favorite weapon – an agent of the Novichok class of chemicals – in an attempt to silence a political opponent. There is no doubt about the attack. The responsibility lies with the Russian state. This aggressive and courageous attempt at life is the latest in a long history of assassinations and poisonings of dissidents, investigative journalists, anti-corruption activists and opposition leaders under Putin’s rule. “
The president-elect promised to “do what Donald Trump refuses to do: work with our allies and partners to hold the Putin regime accountable for its crimes.”
Newsweek Biden reached out to the campaign to comment on Navalny’s congratulatory tweet, but did not immediately respond.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union, sided with Biden in a statement to Russia’s Tass news agency on Sunday. He described the president-elect as “a well-known figure with extensive experience in domestic and foreign policy.”
“I hope that Biden will normalize relations and try to restore trust between our countries. I believe this is in the interests of both the United States and Russia,” Gorbachev said.
MLA Ann Antonov, Tziana Fabi / AFP / Getty
After the 2016 election, Putin quickly congratulated Trump on his victory over Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The Kremlin said in a statement at the time that Putin hoped to work together to restore Russian-American relations from their state of emergency, and to work together to suppress international issues and find effective responses to global security challenges.
Trump has repeatedly spoken out in favor of Putin and was pursuing a major real estate project in Moscow during his 2016 campaign in Moscow – even though he denied having commercial interests in the country. The first two years of the presidency were overshadowed by an investigation led by Special Adviser Robert Mueller into whether the presidential campaign conspired with the Russians to interfere in the 2016 election.
That investigation, along with U.S. intelligence agencies, concluded that Russia interfered in the election to benefit Trump’s campaign. Although a number of Trump campaign officials and allies were indicted and convicted as a result of Mueller’s investigation, the special adviser’s investigation did not conclude that Trump or his campaign had links to the Russians.
Other world leaders have congratulated Biden, including United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and the Saudi royal family. Chinese President Xi Jinping did not share the congratulatory message.
