LIVE UPDATES: The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the 2013 conviction of Alexey Navalny and Pyotr Ofitserov constituted a violation of their rights to a fair trial under the European Convention on Human Rights. Welcome to our column, Russia Update, where we will be closely following day-to-day developments in Russia, including the […]
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was found guilty of fraud in July, and while he recently lost his appeal, in October his five-year prison sentence was suspended. Now the court has released an explanation for the mitigation of his sentence. Under current election law, Navalny, as a convicted felon, would never be able to hold public […]
Vladimir Putin has stated that Alexei Navalny’s sentence in the Kirovles affair is not at all related to his opposition activity and cites several episodes proving – in the president’s opinion – that there was normal “violation of current law” by Navalny. The New Times has fact-checked Putin’s statement. In an interview with Channel One […]
Aleksei Navalny woke up this morning knowing that he’d be found guilty of the crime of embezzlement. What he wasn’t absolutely sure of, though probably heavily suspected, was that he’d be given a lengthy jail sentence — five years, as it turns out, which is just one fewer than the prosecutor had asked for, along […]
4:08 p.m. (EST): Some remaining protesters have started a “lie in” for Nalvany: However, one live feed we’ve been watching is showing police arresting people during a lie in. We’re not sure it’s the same location, but it is in the same general area of Moscow. 3:54 p.m. (EST): There are still some protesters in […]
[Today, opposition leader Alexey Navalny made his closing statement at his trial for “embezzlement.” The defense was not allowed to call any witnesses and comments made before the trial began by the presiding judge and officials from the Investigative Committee characterized his guilt as a foregone conclusion. Nevertheless, Navalny remained defiant in the face of […]
[Lenta has posted this update on Alexey Navalny’s trial for embezzlement, noting that the oppositional leader has been denied the right to call witnesses in his defense. — Ed.] Judge Sergei Blinov refused to summon any of the witnesses, declared by the defense under the “Kirovles” Case. He ruled that in the motion to summon […]
On June 4, Sergei Sobyanin, the Mayor of Moscow, announced his resignation. He will be running for office at early mayoral elections that will be held in September According to Sobyanin, the majority of the capital’s residents support the idea of holding early mayoral elections concurrently with elections for the governor of the Moscow Region […]
The trial of Aleksey Navalny in the Kirovles case resumed in Kirov on Wednesday. Judge Sergei Blinov heard the testimonies of 12 witnesses. Although they were all announced on the side of the prosecution, their testimonies frequently sounded as though they were in favor of Navalny. The opposition leader himself was puzzled after the hearing […]
All show trials in Russia commence with adjournments, as if to purposefully use as banal legal procedure to interrupt the anticipatory anxiety of seeing the Kremlin face off with one of its enemies. So it was with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, with Pussy Riot, and now with the trial of opposition blogger Aleksei Navalny. After all the […]
