OPINION | Washington And the World Biden Must Rally Europe to Stand Up to Putin The new president is facing his first major foreign policy test: How to react to Moscow's treatment of dissident Alexei Navalny. By Max Bergmann and Edward Fishman

Russian President Vladimir Putin. | Adam Berry/Getty Images

By MAX BERGMANN and EDWARD FISHMAN

02/03/2021 04:30 AM EST

Max Bergmann is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. He served as a senior advisor in the State Department from 2011-2017.

Edward Fishman, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and adjunct fellow at the Center for a New American Security, is a former member of the U.S. Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff.

It’s the first foreign-policy test of the Joe Biden presidency. The dissident Alexei Navalny, fresh off of recovering in Germany from an assassination attempt by poison, courageously returned to Russia and was promptly jailed. Protests erupted, and the Kremlin responded with a violent crackdown. Yesterday, a Russian court sentenced Navalny to more than two years in a penal colony. It’s a fraught situation — and one which will set the tone for the Biden administration’s Russia policy and treatment of human rights abuses abroad.

The best response is for Biden to practice what he preached on the campaign trail: rally America’s allies in a new diplomatic push to pressure the regime of Vladimir Putin.

Launching such an effort will be a challenge for the still-understaffed administration. But now is the time. Navalny has captured the attention of the world. This is especially true in Europe, where busine ..

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