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Police arrested Navalny, 44, at a Moscow airport on January 17. (FILE)
Moscow, Russia:
Allies of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny braced for another round of anti-government protests on Sunday, despite authorities stepping up pressure on the opposition with arrests and criminal investigations.
Navalny’s aides have called for new nationwide rallies to demand the release of the opposition leader from the prison where he awaits his trial, which is scheduled to begin on February 2.
This week, several Navalny associates, including lawyer Lyubov Sobol and his brother Oleg, were placed under house arrest until the end of March pending charges of violating coronavirus restrictions by calling on people to stay away. join the demonstrations.
Russian authorities have issued several warnings against participating in upcoming unauthorized rallies and threatened criminal charges against the protesters.
In an unprecedented move, police in the capital Moscow announced the closure of seven metro stations and said pedestrian traffic would be restricted in the city center.
Authorities in Moscow have also said some restaurants and shops in the center will close and air transport will be hijacked.
Police arrested Navalny, 44, at a Moscow airport on January 17 as he arrived from Germany, where he was recovering from exposure to a Soviet-designed nerve toxin.
A makeshift court at a police station ordered the anti-corruption activist to be taken into custody until his trial for violating the terms of a 2014 suspended sentence.
Sunday’s rally in Moscow is due to take place outside the headquarters of the Federal Security Service, Russia’s main security agency, which Navalny says carried out the near-fatal poisoning attack on the orders of President Vladimir Putin.
– ‘Wake them up’ –
“The majority is on our side. Let’s wake them up,” Navalny said Thursday in a message from Matrosskaya Tishina in Moscow, a high-security detention center.
Tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets of more than 100 cities across the country last Saturday to protest against Putin’s 20-year rule.
More than 4,000 protesters were arrested as authorities launched a series of criminal investigations.
Authorities are also targeting online platforms demanding they remove posts with calls for rallies or face fines.
The country’s media watchdog said on Friday it summoned representatives from several social networks, including Facebook and TikTok, not to comply.
Russian authorities have launched investigations against Navalny’s associates in Russia and abroad.
The investigation committee said on Friday that Leonid Volkov, head of the Navalny regional network and based in Lithuania, was wanted for calling on minors to participate in unauthorized gatherings.
On Saturday, investigators launched a fraud investigation into Ukrainian businessman Alexander Khomenko who they say funded the Navalny Anti-Corruption Foundation, which publishes wealth surveys of Russian political elites.
His most recent video report that Putin was offered a $ 1.35 billion property on the Black Sea coast garnered over 100 million views on YouTube, becoming the most-watched survey of Navalny.
The Kremlin has denied that the Russian president owns the opulent complex, which Navalny says includes an underground ice hockey arena, private casino and vineyards.
State television on Friday sought to rebut opposition claims that the Black Sea property was a luxurious palace by showing footage under construction.
Billionaire Arkady Rotenberg – Putin’s former judo partner under Western sanctions – said on Saturday that he owned the property and was building a hotel there.
(This story was not edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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