Nikki Haley, Donald Trump’s only rival in the US Republican primary, criticized the former president on Sunday for his silence on the death of Russian rival Alexei Navalny and his anti-NATO statements, AFP reported.

“The fact that he’s not saying anything about Navalny suggests that he’s either on Putin’s side and thinks it’s okay for him to kill his political opponents, or he just doesn’t think it’s an important topic,” Haley told ABC.

The death of Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison, about which the Kremlin is silent, caused a wave of indignation on the part of Western countries, and President Joe Biden said that his Russian colleague was “responsible”.

But Republican Trump, Biden’s predecessor in the White House and who wants to return there, didn’t say a word this weekend about Navalny’s death, Russia or Putin.

Nikki Haley, former ambassador to the United Nations under the Trump administration (2017-2021) and former governor of South Carolina, where the Republican primary election will be held on February 24, also criticized the “terrible” statements of her opponent late last week against the mechanisms of solidarity between NATO allies in front of Moscow.

“All he did then was strengthen Putin,” the Republican candidate said.

“Let’s remind the Americans that Putin said that as soon as Ukraine is taken over, Poland and the Baltic countries will be next (…) These are NATO countries, and this immediately puts America in a situation of war,” Nikki Haley warned.