MOSCOW: A court in Russia on Tuesday ordered the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to be arrested in absentia, part of a sweeping Kremlin crackdown on the opposition.
Moscow’s Basmanny District Court ruled to arrest Yulia Navalnaya, who lives abroad, on charges of alleged involvement in an extremist group.
Navalny, the fiercest political foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin, died in February in an Arctic penal colony while serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges that he condemned as politically motivated. Authorities said he became ill after a walk but otherwise gave no details.
Navalny was imprisoned after returning to Moscow in January 2021 from Germany, where he had been recuperating from the 2020 nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.
Navalnaya has accused Putin of her husband’s death and vowed to continue his activities. Russian officials have vehemently denied involvement in the poisoning and death.
Her spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, in a post on social media platform X described the court’s ruling as a recognition of Navalnaya’s “merits.”
Russian authorities haven’t specified the charges against Navalnaya. They appear to relate to authorities designating Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption as an extremist organization. The 2021 court ruling that outlawed Navalny’s group forced his close associates and team members to leave Russia.
A number of journalists have been jailed on similar charges in recent months in relation to their coverage of Navalny.
The Kremlin’s crackdown on opposition activists, independent journalists and ordinary Russians critical of it has intensified after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.