Securing a crushing victory in the Russian Presidential elections, Vladimir Putin said he had agreed to a prisoner swap involving Alexei Navalny before the opposition leader's sudden death in an Arctic prison in February, CNN reported.
As the ongoing war in Ukraine continues for over two years and conflict with the US and West rages on, Russia will go to the polls on Friday, with President Vladimir Putin most certain to return for a fifth term in power.
Late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny's former chief of staff, Leonid Volkov, was attacked outside his house in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, reported CNN, citing Navalny's spokesperson.
Novosibirsk witnessed the highest detentions with 16 individuals taken into custody. Moscow, where Navalny was interred, saw at least 10 detentions, while Yekaterinburg and the Voronezh region had 10 and 14 detentions, respectively.
In a statement, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said, "Australia holds President Putin and the Russian Government responsible for Mr Navalny's treatment and death in custody."
On the second anniversary of Russia-Ukraine conflict, US President Joe Biden announced over 500 new sanctions against Russia for its ongoing war of conquest of Ukraine and the death of Aleksey Navalny, who was Putin's fiercest opposition leader.
"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 statement read.
The mother of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, alleged that the Moscow authorities are "blackmailing" her to accept a secret burial of her son, after she was allowed to see the corpse for the first time since his mysterious death in prison, The Washington Post reported.
The sanctioned individuals include Vadim Konstantinovich Kalinin, who oversaw the brutal prison camp where Navalny was kept in solitary confinement for up to 2 weeks at a time. Navalny's condition had deteriorated in his 3 years in prison.