Russia: New accusations target Navalny, who risks 30 years

The Russian opponent imprisoned Alessio Navalny he said Thursday that he was being targeted by new criminal charges for “promoting terrorism”, “sustaining extremism”, “financing extremist activities” and “rehabilitating Nazism”, all punishable by 30 years in prison. “The lawyers calculated that it was about 30 years, taking into account the penalties for each of these articles” of the criminal code, he said in a message released by his team on his social media.

The 46-year-old anti-corruption activist, considered President Vladimir Putin’s chief critic, says he received a notification informing him of the opening of this new criminal case when he was already in prison. “I am a genius of the criminal world (…) You all thought that I had been in solitary confinement for two years, in prison, but in reality I was actively committing crimes,” he joked, congratulating the Russian investigators on their “vigilance”.

According to him, these new allegations are visibly linked, in part, to videos posted by his allies in exile, who continue to campaign against Russian power from abroad. Alexei Navalny was arrested in Russia in January 2021, upon his return to the country after suffering a severe poisoning attempt, which he attributes to the Kremlin.

Last March he was sentenced to nine years of imprisonment under a “severe” regime on charges of “fraud” which he considers fictitious. He continues to send his lawyers messages denouncing Vladimir Putin and his intervention in Ukraine, which are then posted online by his team.

This summer, he repeatedly claimed he was held in a punishment cell in his penal colony near Vladimir, 200km east of Moscow. Poisoning him in 2020 and then his imprisonment were heavily denounced in the West.