Opposition determine Leonid Volkov, primarily based in Lithuania, has been discovered responsible on dozens of fees by a army court docket.
Russian dissident and Kremlin critic Leonid Volkov, a distinguished ally of the late opposition chief Alexey Navalny, has been sentenced in absentia to 18 years in jail.
The sentence was handed down by a Russian army court docket on Wednesday that discovered Volkov responsible on dozens of fees, together with spreading faux information in regards to the conflict in Ukraine and “justifying terrorism”.
“Volkov was discovered responsible of greater than 40 episodes of crimes in 9 legal instances,” the Interfax information company stated, quoting a Moscow army court docket.
Volkov, who lives in Lithuania, made gentle of the decision, describing the accompanying 2-million-rouble ($25,200) nice as a slap on the wrist.
“And so they didn’t ban me from utilizing the web! Effectively, I’ll use it then,” he wrote on social media.
In a subsequent publish, he corrected himself and stated, after studying the total verdict, that he had in reality been banned from utilizing the web for 10 years.
“And I’ve already began utilizing it. Rattling. What ought to I do?” he wrote in a jocular riposte.
Volkov, 44, left Russia in 2019 after authorities opened a legal case towards him. He has been on Russia’s wished record since 2021.
Navalny, essentially the most distinguished home critic of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, died instantly in February 2024 in an Arctic penal colony on the age of 47. He had been serving jail phrases totalling greater than 30 years on fraud, “extremism” and different fees that he stated have been trumped as much as silence him.
The authorities designated his motion as “extremist”, casting it as a Western-backed organisation bent on fomenting unrest and revolution.
Regardless of Navalny’s demise, investigators have continued to launch new instances towards his supporters and associates, lots of whom have been designated as “overseas brokers” or “extremists”.
In January, three attorneys who had labored for Navalny have been discovered responsible of belonging to an “extremist” group and sentenced to phrases of as much as 5 and a half years in a penal colony.
In April, 4 journalists have been sentenced to 5 and a half years every after being discovered responsible of working for Navalny’s banned organisation.
