G7 foreign ministers meeting in Munich held a minute's silence for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Saturday, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani's office said.

Tajani "opened the G7 ministers' meeting in Munich by asking for a minute's silence to honour Alexei Navalny," said the ministry in Rome, which is leading the Group of seven nations this year.

"For his ideas and his fight for freedom and against corruption in Russia, Navalny was in fact led to his death," the ministry quoted Tajani as saying.

"Russia must shed light on his death and stop the unacceptable repression of political dissent," it said.

Navalny, the Kremlin's most prominent critic, died on Friday in an Arctic prison, Russian officials said, a month before an election poised to extend President Vladimir Putin's hold on power.

His death after three years in detention and a poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin, deprives Russia's opposition of its figurehead at a time of intense repression and Moscow's campaign in Ukraine.

The G7 foreign ministers were expected to discuss the Ukraine war as well as the Middle East crisis.