Russian opposition leader Navalny urges anti-Kremlin campaign as his new trial begins
Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny urged his supporters Monday to begin a broad campaign against Moscow’s actions in Ukraine as he went on trial on new charges of extremism that could keep him behind bars for decades.
The trial began inside a maximum-security penal colony in Melekhovo, 150 miles east of Moscow, where Navalny, 47, is serving a nine-year sentence for fraud and contempt of court — charges he says are politically motivated. Soon after it began, the judge closed the trial to the public despite Navalny’s call to keep it open.
In a statement posted on social media by his allies, Navalny declared that the decision to close the trial was a sign of fear by President Vladimir Putin, and he announced the start of a campaign against Moscow’s decision to send troops to Ukraine.
Navalny said the effort must reach out to millions to explain the disastrous impact of the fighting and “combat Putin’s lies and the Kremlin’s hypocrisy.” He argued that despite a relentless crackdown on dissent, such a campaign could be efficiently conducted on messaging apps outside the authorities’ control.
“No one but us could enter this fight for our citizens’ hearts and minds, so we need to do it and win,” Navalny said.
Navalny, who exposed official corruption and organized major anti-Kremlin protests, was arrested in January 2021 upon returning to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s KGB years in East Germany offer a window into his crackdown on protests, war on Ukraine and yearning for empire.
Wearing his prison garb, Navalny looked gaunt at the session but spoke emphatically and gestured energetically.
He has said the new extremism charges, which he rejects as “absurd,” could keep him in prison for 30 more years. He said an investigator told him that he would also face a separate military court trial on terrorism charges that could carry a potential life sentence.
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The Moscow City Court, which opened the hearing Monday at Penal Colony No. 6, did not allow media into the room. Instead, they watched the proceedings via video feed from a separate building. Navalny’s parents were also denied access to the courtroom and followed the hearing remotely.
Navalny and his lawyers urged the judge to hold an open trial, arguing that authorities were eager to suppress details of the proceedings to cover up the weakness of the case.
“The investigators, the prosecutors and the authorities in general don’t want the public to know about the trial,” Navalny said.
Alexei Navalny and his colleagues, charged with extremism for supporting democracy, continue to investigate Putin’s corruption
Prosecutor Nadezhda Tikhonova asked the judge to conduct the trial behind closed doors, citing security concerns. The judge agreed and reporters were asked to leave the premises.
The new charges against Navalny relate to the activities of his anti-corruption foundation and statements by his top associates. His allies said the charges retroactively criminalize all the activities of Navalny’s foundation since its creation in 2011.
One of Navalny’s associates, Daniel Kholodny, was relocated from a different prison to face trial alongside him.
Navalny has spent months in a tiny one-person cell, called a punishment cell, for purported disciplinary violations such as an alleged failure to properly button his prison robe, properly introduce himself to a guard or wash his face at a specified time.
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Navalny’s associates and supporters have accused prison authorities of failing to provide him with proper medical assistance and voiced concern about his failing health.
As Navalny’s trial opened, the Prosecutor General’s office declared a Bulgaria-based human rights group, Agora, to be an “undesirable” organization. It said that the group posed a “threat to the constitutional order and national security” by alleging human rights violations and offering legal assistance to members of the opposition movement.
Russian authorities have banned dozens of domestic and foreign nongovernmental organizations on similar grounds.
In Berlin, the German government criticized the trial of Navalny and reiterated its call for his immediate release.
The sentence handed to Ilya Yashin, one of the few Kremlin critics to have stayed in Russia, is a fresh indication of Moscow’s crackdown on dissent.
“In case of of the opposition politician Alexei Navalny, the Russian authorities keep looking for new excuses to extend his imprisonment,” government spokesman Wolfgang Buechner told reporters.
“The German government continues to demand of the Russian authorities that they release Navalny without delay,” he added. “Navalny’s imprisonment is based on a politically motivated verdict, as the European Court of Human Rights concluded back in 2017.”
Asked whether Germany could provide any assistance to Navalny or observe the trial, Foreign Ministry spokesman Christian Wagner said German officials were doing what they could “on the few channels that we have,” but acknowledged that it was “very difficult at the moment” given the current state of relations with Russia.
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