Vadim Ostanin, a former campaign manager for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has been sentenced to nine years in prison. His campaign team made that Monday known on Telegram. The Russian court accuses Ostanin of participating in an “extremist community” and involvement in a non-profit organization “which through its activities incited violence against civilians”, referring to Navalny’s anti-corruption organization FBK.
Ostanin’s conviction shows that the net around Navalny is closing. Not only Russia’s most important opposition politician himself pays the price for the fight he is waging against President Vladimir Putin, but also the people who helped him pay the price. Last week, Daniel Kholodny, the administrator of Navalny’s YouTube channel, was also sentenced to ten years in prison.
According to the campaign team, Ostanin is now unjustly detained for a long time. He is said to have been exclusively engaged in “legal political work”. Ostanin was apprehended and captured in December 2021. Last May voiced a rapporteur of the United Nations are concerned about Ostanin’s deteriorating health situation in the cell. The UN called on Russia to urgently provide him with decent medical care.
Most famous dissident voice
An earlier letter released by Navalny’s team revealed that upon arrival at the prison, Ostanin was placed without explanation in a one-man cell of about six square meters. In his own words, the only window in his cell, actually a kind of cellar, is covered with rubble. “About a week later, the cell was flooded with ankle-deep water. In these cells were rats, ants, spiders,” he wrote. Although Russian authorities put pressure on Ostanin to plead guilty, he maintained his innocence.
Due to his strong criticism of the Putin government, Navalny is currently serving an 11.5-year sentence, partly due to unproven allegations of fraud. The seriously emaciated opposition leader has been serving his sentence since 2021 in the infamous penal colony IK-6. If it is up to Russian prosecutors, his current sentence will be supplemented by another 20 years in prison on new charges of extremism, it emerged last week.
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