Russian anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny gave a defiant speech in a Moscow courtroom, targeting both President Vladimir Putin and the suppression of protests across the country over the past two weekends.
Navalny’s appearance in the Moscow court on Tuesday came two days after protests in cities across Russia saw the detention of thousands of people who had taken to the streets and called for his release. The Saturday before, demonstrations took place in 120 cities.
The opposition leader was arrested last month at a Moscow airport after returning from Berlin, where he had been treated for Novichok nerve poisoning in an attack he said was ordered by Putin.
Prosecutors allege that Navalny violated the terms of a 2014 suspended sentence in an embezzlement case he said was politically motivated. His arrest on January 17 was for alleged violations of parole while he was in Germany.
During his trial on Tuesday, Navalny mocked Putin, saying that while the president is trying to present himself as a politician, he is just a “ poison mixer. ”
Mikhail Svetlov / Getty Images
“There was Alexander the Liberator and Yaroslav the Wise. Now we have Vladimir the Underwear Gifter,” Navalny said, referring to his claim that Federal Security Service (FSB) agents had put Novichok in the lining of his blue underwear.
“The police are guarding me and half of Moscow has been impeached for showing that he is demanding to steal opponents’ underwear and smear them with chemical weapons,” said a report of the proceedings from news site MediaZona.
He described the case against him as “made up, he said the state is” trying to condemn me with the stubbornness of a maniac. “
“It’s easy to lock me up. The main thing in this process is to intimidate a large number of people, this is how it works. They put one person behind bars to scare millions of people,” he added. to.
In his statement to court, Navalny’s lawyer, Vadim Kobzev, described how his client’s poisoning was described as a “political Chernobyl.”
KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV / Getty Images
Kobzev ended his speech by quoting from the HBO series about the 1986 nuclear power plant catastrophe. Referring to a comment by the actor who played one of the scientists, Valery Legasov, there was a warning of the impact that Navalny’s incarceration in Russia.
Legasov said, ‘Dyatlov broke all rules and self-destructs the reactor,’ said Kobzev. “Nobody in that control room knew the shutdown button would work as a detonator.” Dear Judge, don’t act like Dyatlov – don’t push the button. ‘
Prosecutors want Navalny’s suspended sentence to be commuted to a three-and-a-half-year jail sentence, and the judge has suspended the case for deliberation at 5:30 p.m. local time.
Navalny supporters gathered at the court and, according to OVD Info, 287 people had been arrested as of 5 p.m. local time.
The Kremlin has repelled international criticism of both Navalny’s arrest and the crackdown on protests, even accusing the US of being behind the demonstrations.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday that the presence of foreign diplomats at the Navalny trial showed Western interference in Russia’s internal affairs.
The Kremlin continues to deny responsibility for Navalny’s poisoning and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the lack of evidence showed it could have been staged. according to local news reports.
Yuri Felshtinsky is a Russian expert on security services and author of Blow up Russia, which he co-wrote with Alexander Litvinenko, the former FSB officer who was killed in London in 2006 by polonium poisoning, a murder attributed to the Kremlin.
He said authorities would not release Navalny, especially given that the FSB’s poisoning attempt on him had failed, posing a major problem for the Kremlin.
“They missed the moment with Navalny,” he said Newsweek last week. “They tried to poison him, it was a good time to poison him, they failed, now they have to deal with the result of that particular failure.”
He added: “Since then he has become hugely popular, now everyone listens to him.”
Felshtinsky believed that Navalny posed a greater threat to Putin than Boris Nemtsov, the opposition figure who was gunned down outside the Kremlin’s walls in 2015.
“Navalny is calling on various forces … he is fighting corruption and this is very popular. To Putin, the fact that he is popular is an indication that he is a great danger.
“The Kremlin does not think ‘we are dealing with corruption, or we should really allow Navalny to form his party and make it part of the Russian parliament and openly discuss the situation and give him time on the Russian side. state television. ‘
“This is not the direction they are going to take, repression is the only thing they can use.”
The image below from Statista provides an overview of Putin’s time in power.
