(Reuters) – Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has announced a new campaign against Russian President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine.
“We will conduct an election campaign against the war. And against Putin,” he said on Monday. “A long, stubborn, arduous, but fundamentally important election campaign in which we will turn the people against the war.” Despite the ban on his movement, it could have a great impact through targeted messages, since “every grandma now has WhatsApp and Telegram”. Navalny predicted that the campaign would be labeled “illegal and subversive” by the authorities. Nevertheless, they will fight with all their might against “the apparatus of war, corruption and stupidity”.
Navalny comments on his lawyers on social media. 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.
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. 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.
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 in order to silence him. Human rights groups and Western governments consider Navalny a political prisoner. The leadership in Moscow denies this. Navalny was arrested in January 2021. 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.
(Reuters report, written by Christian Rüttger and Scot W. Stevenson, edited by Birgit Mittwollen.; If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at [email protected] (for politics and economics) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters .com (for companies and markets).)