Although Aleksei A. Navalny’s cause of death is not known, his staff often worried that brutal conditions imposed on him in ever crueler prisons might lead to his death.
American spy agencies are divided on whether Moscow would go so far, but the concern is urgent enough that Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has asked China and India to try to talk Russia down.
At least 400 people have been detained across Russia since Aleksei Navalny’s death, a rights group reported. Those who came to lay flowers found solace in the company of others.
President Volodymyr Zelensky pushed back against skepticism of a Ukraine victory, calling on world leaders not to ask when the war would end, but why Russia was still able to wage it.