Moscow — A Russian court ordered opposition leader Alexei Navalny, detained on Sunday on arrival from Germany where he had been recovering from a poisoning attack, jailed for 30 days, defying US and European calls to free him.
The activist faces as much as three-and-a-half years in prison at a hearing set for February 2 on charges he breached the terms of a suspended sentence. In a makeshift courtroom in a police station outside Moscow on Monday, a judge ordered Navalny held until February 15 for those alleged violations.
The outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin was stopped by police at passport control as he landed in Moscow from Berlin, where he had gone for treatment after the August nerve-agent attack he and Western governments blame on the Kremlin. His detention threatens a new round of tension with the West, as well as demonstrations in Russia.
In a video appeal recorded in the courtroom on Monday, he called on supporters to protest.
“Don’t be scared. Come out on the streets — not for me but for yourselves and your future,” he said. Allies said they would seek to organise protests nationally on January 23. They typically defy authorities’ refusal to grant permits.
Before the ruling, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen urged Russia to “immediately” release Navalny and ensure his safety, adding her voice to similar calls from the US, Germany, the UK and other governments.
“Detention of political opponents is against Russia’s international commitments,” she said in a statement on Monday, also calling for a “thorough and independent” investigation of Navalny’s August nerve-agent poisoning.
The rouble slipped against the dollar on Monday, falling to the lowest level in a week.
Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov brushed off the Western concern over Navalny, whose corruption exposés and success in galvanising antigovernment votes have increasingly needled the authorities.
Dismissing the criticism as “artificial and unjustified”, Lavrov said the US and its allies were just trying to distract from their domestic problems. “Everything that is happening with Navalny in connection with his return and arrest is a matter for law-enforcement bodies,” he told reporters in an online media conference. “This is purely a question of applying Russian laws.”
Stopped by Russian law enforcement shortly after landing in Moscow, Navalny kissed his wife, Yuliya, before walking off with police. He spent the night in a cell in a police station in Khimki, a Moscow suburb near the airport.
Court hearing
At the hearing on Monday, Navalny sat beneath a picture of a Stalin-era secret police chief, Genrikh Yagoda. Authorities said the unusual session was held at the police station because Navalny hadn’t had a recent negative Covid-19 test, state-run media agency Tass reported. Prosecutors argued that he had violated the terms of the 2015 suspended sentence by failing to make required check-ins with authorities, including while he was recovering in Germany.
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who departs with the rest of the Trump administration on Wednesday, condemned Russia’s decision and called for Navalny’s immediate and unconditional release.
The move to imprison the most prominent opponent of the Russian president marks the biggest crackdown by Putin in recent years. Coming days before US president-elect Joe Biden takes office, it could trigger an immediate clash with the new Democratic administration.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, blasted the Kremlin and called for Navalny’s release.
For the moment, however, investors don’t see much chance of major additional sanctions.
“It doesn’t sound like this is the hill the new US administration intends to die on,” said Paul McNamara, who oversees $5bn in emerging-market debt as a money manager at GAM Investments in London and holds Russian government bonds. “The noises have been subdued.”
Navalny returned home amid rising political tension ahead of Russian parliamentary elections later in the year and as support for the Kremlin falters amid the coronavirus downturn. Putin, whose two-decade rule makes him the longest-serving leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, last year overturned term limits, allowing him to stay in power until 2036. Speculation that he may step down far sooner is building.
The opposition politician, who also potentially faces separate charges of embezzlement punishable by up to 10 years in prison, decided to confront imprisonment on the calculation that he will become a powerful symbol of resistance to Putin, according to analysts.
While for years Navalny was repeatedly jailed for weeks at a time and faced assaults on the street — at one point nearly losing his eye — the poisoning attack marked the most serious attempt to kill him. Russia denied any involvement and said it found no proof the opposition politician was poisoned, accusing him of fabricating it as part of working for the US Central Intelligence Agency.
Bloomberg
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