Trump acknowledges Navalny’s death days later, without mentioning Putin

Flowers are laid in homage to Alexei Navalny, next to the Russian embassy in Paris on Monday. Photograph: Christian Liewig/Corbis/Getty Images

Donald Trump has offered a belated acknowledgment of the purportedly sudden death of Alexei Navalny, three days after the Russian opposition leader collapsed in one of Russia’s penal colonies. But Trump failed to join with – or acknowledge – international outrage at Navalny’s political nemesis, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

“The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our country,” Trump posted on his Truth Social network. The former US president and presumptive Republican White House nominee added: “It is a slow, steady progression, with CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction.”