Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was sentenced Tuesday to nine years behind bars on new charges of embezzlement and contempt.
The 45-year-old dissident — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most well-known adversary — was already serving a 2½-year sentence at a prison camp for parole violations related to old theft charges involving the same case, claims were fabricated to thwart his political ambitions.
“Navalny committed fraud — the theft of property by an organized group,” Judge Margarita Kotova said Tuesday, adding that the defendant was also guilty of an additional criminal offense for publicly insulting the court, according to Agence France-Presse.
The dissident — who survived a nerve-agent attack in 2020 that Russia has denied carrying out — was accused of stealing several million dollars’ worth of donations that were given to his political groups. He has denied the charges.
Navalny’s lawyers said the new sentence replaces his current lesser one, meaning that he will not be freed for another eight years, instead of a year and a half after serving a year already on his old sentence. He also will be moved to a maximum-security prison.
On Tuesday, Navalny appeared unfazed as he stood in the makeshift court at the prison camp wearing his black issued uniform, looking down as he flipped through documents before receiving the additional time in the maximum-security penal colony.
“Putin is afraid of the truth, I have always said this. Fighting censorship, relaying the truth to the people of Russia always remained our priority,” Navalny wrote on Instagram after his sentencing.
The opposition politician also injected humor into the situation, joking that his “space flight is being extended — my ship has gotten caught in a time loop.”
Navalny’s wife Yulia posted on Instagram: “The figure 9 means absolutely nothing. I love you, my dearest person in the world, and I’ve never stopped being proud of you all these many, many years.”
His lawyers, Olga Mikhailova and Vadim Kobzev, were briefly detained by police outside the prison in Pokrov, a town near Moscow, after the verdict but were later released.
Last week, a Russian prosecutor called for his sentence to be extended to 13 years and for him to be transferred to a “strict regime” prison.
The prosecutor also called for him to pay a fine of 1.2 million rubles, the equivalent of about $11,500.
Navalny was jailed last year when he returned to Russia after receiving medical treatment in Germany after the attack involving Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent, during a visit to Siberia in 2020.
He blamed Putin for the attack, but the Kremlin said it had seen no evidence that Navalny was poisoned and denied any Russian role if he was.
On March 15 — after the prosecutor called for a stiffer sentence for him — Navalny struck a typically defiant tone on Instagram, writing, “If the prison term is the price of my human right to say things that need to be said … then they can ask for 113 years. I will not renounce my words or deeds.”
Navalny’s opposition movement has been labeled “extremist” and shut down, but his supporters continue to express their political views, including their opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
