Wanted: Court in Moscow issues arrest warrant for Navalnaya

A Russian court has issued an arrest warrant for opposition politician Yulia Navalnaya, who lives abroad. The court has granted the prosecutor’s request for pre-trial detention on suspicion of involvement in an extremist organization, a court spokesman in Moscow told the Interfax news agency. The pre-trial detention is initially set for two months and will come into effect after Navalnaya is extradited to Russia. The politician has been put on the wanted list.

Yulia Navalnaya is the widow of Russian Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who died in February in a penal camp north of the Arctic Circle under unclear circumstances. Navalnaya has blamed Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin for her husband’s death and announced that she wants to continue Navalny’s fight for democracy in Russia. Navalny was sentenced to a long prison term by Russian courts for extremism, among other things.

According to Russian media, the accusation of extremism against Navalnaya is based on the distribution of videos in which she criticized Putin and the war of aggression against Ukraine that he ordered. Investigators see this as a discrediting of the authorities and an attempt to create a mood for a violent coup, they say. She is also accused of financing the Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK). The FBK was founded by Navalny at the time specifically to uncover corruption scandals involving high-ranking Russian politicians. The Russian judiciary recently classified the activities of the FBK as extremist.

Navalnaya herself lives abroad because of the danger she faces in Russia. She has not yet given any information about when she plans to return to Russia. However, people who are classified as hostile by the Russian leadership are not always safe abroad. There are repeated cases in which Russian opposition members become victims of attacks.