MOSCOW, February 19. /TASS/. Dissent among fringe groups abroad is growing due to blogger Alexey Navalny's death, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Gennady Askaldovich told reporters.
"I have not analyzed the Navalny situation. But I have no doubt that the fringe opposition is growing abroad. It may affect those who will come to vote, I don't know whether in a positive or negative way," he said when asked how Navalny's death would affect the presidential election abroad.
The diplomat emphasized these opposition groups operating on the periphery were becoming more aggressive. "What upsets me is that this fringe opposition is very aggressive. It is difficult to predict what we should expect from it during the election. I would not like to see any provocations or other actions. We are warning all kinds of extremists that there is a law that we can apply to those who want to disrupt the normal course of the election," he pointed out.
"But, of course, the situation is more complicated in unfriendly countries," Askaldovich noted.
The Federal Penitentiary Service’s Directorate for the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region said on February 16 that Navalny had died in a penal colony. According to the penitentiary authority, Navalny felt sick after a walk and fainted. Medics arrived immediately but their more than 30-minute resuscitation efforts failed. Meanwhile, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov slammed the West’s statements concerning Navalny’s death as rabid and totally inadmissible, bearing in mind that there is no official information about the cause of his death.