Jailed Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny receives new 19-year prison sentence for ‘extremism’

A Moscow court sentenced opposition figure Alexey Navalny to 19 years in prison on charges of “extremism” on Friday, Russian state media reported. He will serve his sentence in a “special regime” prison colony, the category of correctional institution with the toughest conditions for inmates in Russia.

Update: The court dropped four charges against Navalny due to the expiry of the statute of limitations, reports independent outlet Mediazona. According to the outlet, Navalny was acquitted of “rehabilitating Nazism,” involving minors in dangerous acts, creating a nonprofit organization that infringed on citizens’ rights, and publicly calling for “extremism.”

Navalny’s co-defendant in the case is the former technical director of his YouTube channel, Daniel Kholodny, who was charged with participating in “extremist activity” and financing it. According to the independent outlet Mediazona, Kholodny was sentenced to serve time in a “general regime” prison colony, but the exact length of his sentence was unintelligible from the courtroom broadcast. State prosecutors requested a 10-year sentence.

Update: Daniel Kholodny was sentenced to eight years in prison, his lawyer told Novaya Gazeta later on Friday.

In March 2022, Navalny was sentenced to nine years in prison for fraud and contempt of court. Friday’s hearing took place at the Vladimir region’s Penal Colony No. 6, where the protest leader is serving that sentence.

According to Ivan Zhdanov, the head of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, Navalny was charged with six criminal offenses: organizing an “extremist organization,” publically calling for “extremism,” “rehabilitating Nazism,” involving minors in dangerous acts, creating a nonprofit organization that infringed on citizens’ rights, and financing “extremism.” State prosecutors requested a 20-year sentence.

“The number of years does not matter. I perfectly understand that, like many political prisoners, I am sitting on a life sentence. Where life is measured by the term of my life or the term of life of this regime,” Navalny said in a statement published on Twitter shortly after Friday’s verdict.

Defense witnesses in Navalny’s case included imprisoned opposition politicians Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin, as well as Navalny associate Lilia Chanysheva, among others.

In his closing statement on July 20, Navalny said that “everyone in Russia knows that he who seeks justice in court is completely defenseless,” and that “such a person should abandon all hope.” He noted that Russia “took a few big leaps, pushing everyone around, but then slipped and collapsed with a crash, destroying everything around it.” Now, he said, it’s “floundering in a pool of either mud or blood, with broken bones.” But sooner or later, he said, Russia will “rise again — and it’s up to us to determine what it will rest on in the future.”