A week ago, a Russian court rejected Alexei Navalny’s appeal against his nine-year prison sentence. Now the Kremlin opponent is reporting new allegations against him.

Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny, who has just been sentenced to nine years in a prison camp, claims to have been served a new indictment by the Russian judiciary while in prison.

This time it’s about extremism and a possible sentence of another 15 years in prison, the 45-year-old said on Instagram. “As it turns out, I founded an extremist group to incite hatred against officials and oligarchs,” writes the anti-corruption fighter.

Navalny has made powerful enemies with revelations about corruption and abuse of power in the Russian state apparatus. His anti-corruption foundation has been classified as extremist in Russia. The judiciary in Moscow has a reputation for being controlled by the Kremlin. Human rights activists speak of an arbitrary instrument used to silence the opposition.

Power struggle with Putin

So far, every indictment against the most well-known opponent of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin has ended with a guilty verdict. Navalny also blamed Putin for an assassination attempt with the chemical warfare agent Novichok in August 2020, which he barely survived. The President denies there was a crime.

Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Jarmysch writes in the short message service Twitter that just a week ago the sentence of nine years in a prison camp under particularly harsh conditions against Navalny was confirmed by the Russian judiciary. «Putin will not let Alexei out as long as he is in power. It is therefore our task to end his power as quickly as possible.”

Jarmysch welcomes the sanctions imposed by the West on Putin and those around him in the wake of the Russian war against Ukraine. It is evident every day that these punitive measures are effective because Putin and his power apparatus repeatedly demand that they be lifted.