Opposition determine Leonid Volkov, primarily based in Lithuania, has been discovered responsible on dozens of prices by a army courtroom.
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 courtroom on Wednesday that discovered Volkov responsible on dozens of prices, together with spreading pretend information in regards to the warfare in Ukraine and “justifying terrorism”.
“Volkov was discovered responsible of greater than 40 episodes of crimes in 9 felony circumstances,” the Interfax information company stated, quoting a Moscow army courtroom.
Volkov, who lives in Lithuania, made gentle of the decision, describing the accompanying 2-million-rouble ($25,200) positive as a slap on the wrist.
“And so they didn’t ban me from utilizing the web! Nicely, I’ll use it then,” he wrote on social media.
In a subsequent put up, he corrected himself and stated, after studying the complete verdict, that he had in actual fact 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 felony case towards him. He has been on Russia’s needed listing since 2021.
Navalny, probably the most distinguished home critic of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, died abruptly 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 prices 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 loss of life, investigators have continued to launch new circumstances 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.