The death of Alexei Navalny on February 16th came as a real shock to the world. The main opponent of Vladimir Putin, who died during his Siberian imprisonment, was a reminder that the Kremlin was determined to continue its ultra-authoritarian drift.
And indeed, since February, the other main opposition figures in Russia have suffered increased repression from the authorities. This week was particularly violent for many of them, from Yulia Navalnaya to Nobel Peace Prize winner Oleg Orlov, Vladimir Kara-Murza and the independent newspaper The Moscow Times. Overview.
Arrest warrant, “terrorist”… Yulia Navalnaya, Kremlin target number 1?
She has vowed to continue the legacy of her husband Alexei Navalny. A message that the Kremlin seems to take seriously, which on Thursday, July 11, placed Yulia Navalnaya on the list of “terrorists and extremists.” Two days earlier, on Tuesday, July 9, the Russian justice system had announced that the opponent was the subject of an arrest warrant for “participation in an extremist group.” Her pretrial detention had even been ordered in her absence by a Moscow court.
In exile far from Russia, this arrest warrant and this inclusion on the list of “terrorists” will have no impact on her daily life. But the message is clear: if she were to return to Russian soil, her arrest would be immediate. Like Alexei Navalny, arrested at Moscow airport upon his return to Russia on January 17, 2021.
Not enough to scare Alexei Navalny’s widow, who reacted in her usual caustic tone. “My God, I didn’t look at my phone for an hour, and in that hour I’ve already become a terrorist,” Yulia Navalnaya mocked on the social network X. “He kills the husband and lists the wife as a terrorist. Typical of Putin,” she added. “How fast! […] “If they apply themselves to this extent, it is because Yulia Navalnaya is doing everything right,” the former spokesperson for Alexei Navalny, Kira Yarmysh, also in exile, also joked on X.
In a statement, French diplomacy denounced this “additional step in the authoritarian drift of the Russian regime” and a “cynical and revolting decision”. […] which demonstrates the determination of the Russian regime to hinder Yulia Navalnaya’s resumption of Alexei Navalny’s fight.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, for his part, condemned an “arrest warrant against the desire for freedom and democracy.”
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Oleg Orlov’s Prison Sentence Upheld
Will Oleg Orlov ever set foot on Russian soil in freedom again? Nothing is less certain. A 71-year-old human rights activist, notably known for having co-founded the NGO Memorial, co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, he saw his prison sentence confirmed on Thursday, July 11. Two and a half years behind bars… or surely more, when we know the methods of repression in Russia.
Unlike many opponents of the Kremlin, Oleg Orlov had chosen to stay in Russia in order to “continue the fight” against Vladimir Putin. But last February, his harsh and repeated criticism of the invasion of Ukraine ultimately led to his imprisonment. A conviction confirmed on appeal this Thursday, despite a “fragile” state of health, as French diplomacy recalled. The Quai d’Orsay denounced “a trial during which the rights of the defense were systematically flouted” and a “new example of Russia’s authoritarian drift.”
Oleg Orlov, participating by videoconference from his cell more than 900 km from Moscow, was keen to appear combative and unwavering in his positions. “I regret nothing and repent nothing,” he repeated a few minutes before the start of the hearing, before “refusing” to answer the court’s questions, which he described as “unfair.”
He then compared the Russian justice system to that of Nazi Germany, quoting the words of American lawyer Telford Taylor at the Nuremberg trials after World War II. “They have distorted, perverted and ultimately achieved the total destruction of justice and law,” he repeated, words he considered “remarkably apt to characterize the current state” of Russian justice.
The worrying hospitalization of Vladimir Kara-Mourza
His situation inevitably recalls the tragic end of Alexei Navalny: Vladimir Kara-Murza, one of the prominent figures of the Russian opposition, was hospitalized a few days ago in a penitentiary care facility. Enough to raise fears, as the 42-year-old man has kept significant after-effects of two poisonings of which he was the victim in 2015 and 2017.
Vladimir Kara-Murza, honored by the Pulitzer Prize jury last May for “his impassioned articles written at the risk of his life from his prison cell”, is one of the main victims of the increasingly violent hardening of the Kremlin’s repressive system. He was sentenced in April 2023 to twenty-five years in prison for “treason” and spreading “false information” about the conflict in Ukraine, a particularly harsh sentence, even in the context of increased repression in Russia. His place of incarceration: the Orsk penal colony in Siberia, whose conditions are also reminiscent of the treatment reserved for Alexei Navalny.
Following his hospitalization, his relatives have been alarmed all week about being denied the opportunity to visit him, expressing great concern for his state of health. His lawyer Sergei Safronov was finally able to meet him on Wednesday, July 10, his colleague, lawyer Vadim Prokhorov, indicated on Facebook, noting that their client’s condition was “relatively stable.” “For six days, the lawyers did not have access to Vladimir,” he wrote. Considering that “currently, his state of health is relatively stable,” he also recalled that his client suffered from polyneuropathy, “a serious chronic disease.”
The day before, the same Vadim Prokhorov, quoted by the anti-war Telegram channel Reforum Journal, taken up by the channel of the opponent’s relatives, had estimated that his client was “in great danger”. “Vladimir’s health has been deteriorating since February 2023. On July 2, he felt as usual when he met his lawyer, but everything can change very quickly,” he had further stressed, citing the example of Navalny, who died in prison in February in unclear circumstances.
The Russian government, for its part, has only denied being responsible for the situation, and has stated that it cannot do anything for the Russian opposition. “Unfortunately, we do not have the possibility to follow this situation,” said this week the spokesman for the Russian presidency Dmitry Peskov during a press briefing, affirming that it was “not a prerogative” of the Kremlin.
The opposition newspaper The Moscow Times classified as “undesirable”
Leading opposition figures are not the only victims of this week of intense repression. The independent media The Moscow Times was classified as “undesirable” in Russia on Wednesday and therefore banned, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office said. Launched in 1992, shortly after the collapse of the USSR, the media outlet, which publishes in English and Russian, had already been designated a “foreign agent” in November 2023, forcing most of its employees to leave the country.
However, the status of “undesirable organization” is even more infamous, and makes its collaborators liable to criminal prosecution in Russia. Its journalists… but also its readers: according to the news site Mediazona, which specializes in legal affairs and repression, people have been fined simply for sharing links or articles published by organizations classified as “undesirable.”
Reporters Without Borders reacted very quickly to this announcement, and said it was “outraged by the labelling of the Moscow Times as an ‘undesirable organization’, which prohibits any activity in the country and exposes its staff to prison. This is the 21st media outlet stigmatized by this ‘status’, due to their coverage of the war in Ukraine,” the NGO castigated. “Of course, we will continue our work as usual: independent journalism. This is a crime in Putin’s Russia,” assured the founder of the Moscow TimesDerk Sauer, in a message posted on X.