2023-06-19 23:22:30
Navalny announced a “long, stubborn, exhausting, but fundamentally important election campaign in which we will turn people against the war”.
Currently in detention, Navalny predicted the campaign would be deemed “illegal and subversive” by authorities. Nevertheless, one will brace oneself with all one’s might against “the apparatus of war, corruption and stupidity”.
Navalny spoke about his lawyers on social networks. A statement from the Russian government was initially not available. The next presidential election in Russia is scheduled for 2024. Putin has not yet announced whether he will stand again.
First formal political allegations
Before the statement, Navalny was in a new trial before a Russian court. He faces decades of additional imprisonment. The hearing took place in a penal camp in Melekhovo, about 235 kilometers east of Moscow, where the 47-year-old is being held. This time he is accused of, among other things, inciting and financing extremism and founding an extremist organization.
His team emphasized that it was the first time that formal political allegations had been made against Navalny. “He will be put on trial for his political work,” spokeswoman Kira Jarmysch told AFP. According to his own statements, Navalny is also threatened with a trial before a military court for “terrorism” allegations and thus a life sentence.
IMAGO/TASS/Sofya Sandurskaya Navalny’s parents, Anatoly and Lyudmila, attended the trial but were not allowed into the courtroom
Transfer stopped from process start
The trial was first broadcast on video in a room reserved for journalists, but later continued in camera. Safety concerns were cited as the reason.
Incarcerated for two years
Navalny has been behind bars for more than two years. He has already been sentenced to a total of eleven and a half years in a penal colony. Navalny dismisses the allegations as fictitious. Human rights groups and Western governments regard Navalny, who has repeatedly taken nationalist positions in the past, as a political prisoner. The leadership in Moscow denies that. Navalny was arrested in January 2021.
Poisoned in flight
In August 2020 he collapsed on a flight within Russia. First he was treated in Russia, then transferred to the Berlin Charite. There, poisoning with a nerve agent was determined. The government in Moscow has denied allegations that Russian authorities tried to kill him. Contrary to warnings of renewed imprisonment and political persecution, Navalny returned to Russia after recovering. He was immediately arrested there.
Navalny and his team uncovered and documented cases of systematic corruption among the Russian elite. He had also supported opposition politicians through a network of offices across Russia. In 2018 he wanted to run for the presidential election himself, but this was prevented by the authorities.
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