Category Archives: Alexei Navalny

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny says prison plays pro-Putin pop song every morning

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Opposition leader says prisoners forced to listen to ‘I am Russian’ by Shaman as part of 5am regime

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has complained of being poisoned, assaulted and deprived of proper medical care, but this week he disclosed he faced a new challenge: being forced to listen to a pro-Putin pop singer at 5am every morning.

Navalny, 47, a former lawyer who rose to prominence more than a decade ago by lampooning president Vladimir Putin’s elite and voicing allegations of vast corruption, is now in a jail about 60 km (40 miles) north of the Arctic Circle.

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Alexei Navalny jokes about ‘nearly naked’ Moscow party from Arctic prison

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Jailed Russian opposition leader ridiculed backlash to controversial event in first public appearance since disappearance

The jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has ridiculed the backlash to a “nearly naked party” in Moscow during his first appearance since being banished to an Arctic prison, as authorities temporarily shut the nightclub where the party happened.

“Did you have a party?” Navalny asked the representative of the prison authorities during a video conference court appearance from the IK-3 penal colony in the Yamalo-Nenets region. “You probably had a naked party like [Nastya] Ivleeva?”

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Vladimir Putin will use election to show war-weary Russia he’s still calling the shots

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Russia’s presidential is a foregone conclusion, but the appearance of democracy still matters greatly to its leader

In news that likely shocked no one, Vladimir Putin last month announced that he will seek a fifth presidential term in the upcoming March elections.

In a country where Putin, 71, has come to dominate Russia’s political system and the media over the past two decades, the outcome will probably leave little room for imagination.

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Alexei Navalny: ‘I’m fine’ says Kremlin critic from remote Arctic penal colony

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Writing on X, jailed Russian opposition leader said he was ‘still in a good mood’ after an exhausting transfer to the ‘Polar Wolf’ prison

The jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said he was “fine” after a “pretty exhausting” 20-day transfer to a penal colony beyond the Arctic Circle.

The Kremlin critic’s whereabouts had been unknown for more than two weeks, but he is in a penal colony in Russia’s far north and has been visited by his lawyer, his supporters have said.

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Alexei Navalny discovered in remote Arctic penal colony

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Jailed Russian opposition leader ‘doing well’, according to aides, nearly three weeks after going missing

The jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been located in a remote prison colony above the Arctic Circle after going missing for nearly three weeks, his aides have said.

Navalny was tracked down to the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp in the Yamal-Nenets region, about 1,200 miles north-east of Moscow, his spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said on Monday. “We have found Alexei Navalny,” she wrote on X.

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Documents show Putin’s order to move superyacht before Ukraine invasion

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Russian president ordered urgent removal of Graceful from Hamburg shipyard, investigation claims

Vladimir Putin moved his $100m (£75m) superyacht from a German shipyard to Russia just weeks before he ordered the invasion of Ukraine, according to secret documents released in a new investigation.

A Russian anti-corruption organisation set up by the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny claims emails show that the Russian president ordered the urgent moving of the 82-metre superyacht, called Graceful, from a shipyard in Hamburg, where it was undergoing a $32m refit, by 1 February 2022.

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‘We have ambitious plans’: Anti-Putin forces plan fresh attacks inside Russia

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Leader of cross-border raids from Ukraine says weapons, not words, are needed to overthrow the regime in Moscow

The commander of the Freedom of Russia Legion says his fighters are planning another cross-border raid into Russia and are seeking to capitalise on disarray inside the Kremlin following the mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin.

“There will be a further surprise in the next month or so,” Caesar, a spokesperson for the anti-Putin paramilitary group, said in an interview with the Observer in Kyiv. “It will be our third operation. After that there will be a fourth, and fifth. We have ambitious plans. We want to free all our territory.”

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Russia says Navalny’s ‘extremism’ trial must be held in private

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Kremlin critic faces charges that could lead to a substantial extension of his jail time

A Russian court has ordered that the latest trial of Alexei Navalny be held behind closed doors, as the Kremlin critic faces extremism charges that could mean his prison time is extended for decades.

Navalny is being tried at the maximum-security prison where he is jailed: IK-6 penal colony, about 150 miles (250km) east of Moscow.

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Russian woman given suspended sentence for ‘insulting’ note on Putin’s parents’ grave

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Case comes amid Kremlin’s growing crackdown on dissent over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

A Russian court has given a two-year suspended sentence to a St Petersburg woman who left a note on the grave of President Vladimir Putin’s parents saying they had “raised a freak and a killer”.

The court found Irina Tsybaneva, 60, guilty of desecrating burial places motivated by political hatred. Her lawyer said she didn’t plead guilty because she hadn’t desecrated the grave physically or sought publicity for her action.

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Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny says he faces life in jail over terror charges

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Allies of opposition leader already serving 11 years say charges may be linked to death of pro-war blogger

The jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny says he is facing potential life imprisonment on fresh charges of terrorism amid an ongoing campaign to silence the prominent Kremlin critic more than a year into the invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking over video link at a hearing before a separate trial for “extremism”, Navalny, 46, said investigators had told him he would also be tried by a military court for terrorist attacks he had allegedly committed while behind bars.

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Gaunt and ghostly, Georgia’s jailed ex-president nears death in hospital

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Mikheil Saakashvili warned of Putin’s ambitions 15 years ago. Now he tells of torture by a regime that panders to Moscow

Locked up in a Tbilisi hospital, Mikheil Saakashvili is slowly wasting away.

“I am asking to be transferred to Poland, as it is crystal clear that in Georgian hospital I will die,” Georgia’s former president wrote in response to questions from the Observer last week. His answers were scrawled in blue ballpoint pen on sheets of paper, passed to his lawyers.

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Putin opponents and Russian liberals celebrate Navalny’s Oscar success

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Director dedicates award to all political prisoners after film about Russian opposition leader wins best feature documentary

Russian liberals on Monday celebrated the Oscar win of Navalny, a documentary about the poisoning and imprisonment of the “hero” Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

The film, which won best feature documentary at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday, follows an investigation by Navalny’s team together with the Bellingcat group as they unmask FSB agents who were sent to poison Navalny in 2020. The Kremlin has always denied involvement.

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Alexei Navalny aide says his survival may depend on value to Vladimir Putin

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Leonid Volkov warns Russian opposition leader’s health is at risk from indefinite solitary confinement

Alexei Navalny’s survival may depend on his value to Vladimir Putin as a future bargaining chip, his chief aide said, warning that the opposition leader’s health was at risk after being forced into indefinite solitary confinement.

Leonid Volkov, speaking on a visit to London, added that Navalny had lost access to his family and was being permanently detained in a “8 by 12ft” cell after the isolation decision by Russian authorities last week.

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Russia declares popular rapper and writer ‘foreign agents’

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Oxxxymiron added to an updated list alongside four journalists and Dmitry Glukhovsky, a prominent writer

The Russian justice ministry has declared one of the country’s most popular rappers to be a “foreign agent”, a legal designation that has been used to hound Kremlin critics and journalists.

Oxxxymiron, whose real name is Miron Fyodorov, was added to an updated list of foreign agents alongside four journalists and Dmitry Glukhovsky, a prominent writer.

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Russia’s Alexei Navalny faces extra 15 years in jail over ‘extremism’ claims

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Political foe of Russian president Vladimir Putin was already sentenced to nine-year term earlier this year

The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is facing new criminal accusations that could extend his current prison term by 15 years.

In an Instagram post on Tuesday, Navalny said an investigator had visited him in prison to declare that the authorities had opened a new investigation against him on charges of “creating an extremist group to fan hatred against officials and oligarchs” and trying to stage unsanctioned rallies.

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Ukraine war is Putin’s death warrant, says wife of jailed politician

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Vladimir Kara-Murza’s wife Evgenia says Russian president will fall over war in Ukraine

Vladimir Kara-Murza’s wife Evgenia thinks he will have been like a “hurricane contained inside a bottle” since he was arrested on 11 April in Moscow and held in pre-trial detention over a speech he had made in Arizona criticising the war in Ukraine.

“He has so much energy, so many ideas, and initiatives, that being contained within the four walls of a prison will be the hardest part for him,” said Evgenia, who has not been allowed to speak to him.

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Greta stands with Sami and Navalny on trial again: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Mexico

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Alexei Navalny faces 15 more years in prison as new trial starts

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Russian opposition leader in fresh trial at penal colony far from support base on charge of embezzlement

Russia could extend Alexei Navalny’s imprisonment for up to a further 15 years in a fresh criminal trial that his supporters warn has been overshadowed by the crisis in Ukraine.

The Russian opposition leader is accused of embezzling donations to his FBK anti-corruption organisation, which has accused Vladimir Putin of owning a £1bn mansion and other top officials enriching themselves through corrupt schemes.

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Desmond Tutu’s funeral and Kazakhstan clashes: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Hong Kong

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Russian court orders closure of another human rights group

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Memorial Human Rights Centre liquidated a day after its sister group, Memorial, in assault on civil liberties

A Russian court has ordered the closure of the Memorial Human Rights Centre (MHRC), a day after the supreme court revoked the legal status of its sister organisation, Memorial International.

Moscow city court authorised the dissolution of the group – one of Russia’s most venerated human rights institutions – for the “justification of extremism and terrorism” by religious groups including Jehovah’s Witnesses officially considered “extremist” in Russia.

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