Micheál Martin agrees Alexei Navalny was killed by Russian state as Russian ambassador to Ireland gets summoned

Micheál Martin has agreed with other leaders that Alexei Navalny was killed by the Russian state as the Russian ambassador of Ireland gets summoned by the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The Tánaiste said Mr Navalny’s death “reflects a very repressive regime that shuts down any form of internal dissent, and freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.”

“We want to formally communicate that view shared by the vast majority of the Irish people. We already have subjected Russia and Russian leadership to the most expensive and hard-hitting sanctions in European history,” he said this morning on RTÉ's Morning Ireland.

This comes as the Department of Foreign Affairs summoned Yuri Filatov, the Russian ambassador to Ireland, yesterday to “express outrage” at the death of opposition figure, Alexei Navalny.

Navalny died while being held in a jail near the Arctic Circle at the age of 47. The opposition leader had been sentenced to 19 years in jail under a ‘special regime’.

Navalny’s wife, Yulia, has condemned Putin for the death of her husband in a video announcement.

Four days after Navalny’s death, she said: “I shouldn’t have recorded this video. There should be another person in my place, but this person was killed by Vladimir Putin.

“Putin killed the father of my children, Putin took away the most precious thing I had, the closest and most beloved person - but Putin also took Navalny from you.”