After Report of Navalny Death, Haley Attacks Trump Over Past Praise for Putin

Many Republicans lined up to condemn President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Friday after Russian authorities reported the death of Aleksei A. Navalny, the outspoken opposition leader.

But Nikki Haley went further, using criticism of Mr. Putin to attack former President Donald J. Trump, her rival in the G.O.P. primary, for his past remarks that praised Mr. Putin.

“Putin did this. The same Putin who Donald Trump praises and defends,” Ms. Haley, a former governor of South Carolina who served Mr. Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, wrote on the social media platform X on Friday.

She referenced comments that Mr. Trump made in 2015, during his first run for president, when he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that, “In all fairness to Putin, you’re saying he killed people. I haven’t seen that.”

Russian authorities announced on Friday that Mr. Navalny, an anticorruption activist who was openly critical of Mr. Putin and was serving multiple sentences that would likely have kept him in prison until 2031, had died in a prison inside the Arctic Circle. President Biden said on Friday afternoon that U.S. officials did not have a full understanding of the situation’s circumstances, but that he believed “there is no doubt that the death of Navalny was a consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”

Mr. Trump has not yet commented publicly on Mr. Navalny’s death, prompting Ms. Haley to also seize on his silence. In another post to X, she wrote that, “Putin murdered his political opponent and Trump hasn’t said a word after he said he would encourage Putin to invade our allies. He has, however, posted 20+ times on social media about his legal drama and fake polls.”

Since reports of Mr. Navalny’s death surfaced Friday morning,