On Friday, a Russian court will rule on the trial of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is facing extremism accusations that may keep him in prison for decades.
The 47-year-old attacked Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine in his closing speech to the court, which was followed by an extraordinary crackdown on critics of President Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Russia was “floundering in a pool of either mud or blood,” according to Navalny.
“Around it lie tens of thousands of people killed in the most stupid and senseless war of the 21st century,” he told the court.
Prosecutors have requested a jail term of 20 years on charges that include the financing of extremist activity, publicly inciting extremist activities and “rehabilitating Nazi ideology”.
Navalny is serving a nine-year sentence in prison on embezzlement allegations, which his supporters consider as punishment for his political activism.
With films exposing the alleged corruption of the Russian elite, the feisty government critic amassed a significant social media following and mobilized major anti-government protests.
He was apprehended in Moscow in 2021 after arriving from Germany, where he had been recovering from a poisoning attack he blames on the Kremlin.
The trial is taking place behind closed doors at the IK-6 penal colony, a maximum security prison located around 250 kilometers (155 miles) east of Moscow, where Navalny is imprisoned.
