Russia is stepping up pressure on critic Navalny, with a new investigation

Russia opened a new investigation on Tuesday into the Alexei Navalny case, increasing the pressure on one of Moscow’s more outspoken critics.

The Russian Investigation Commission said The current situation It was launching a new fraud investigation into allegations that it misused $ 5 million donations to his anti-corruption foundation and other companies.

The Navalny Foundation has undergone a raft of investigations by the Russian government, although he and his allies said the investigations were attempts to undermine the opposition movement.

“It turns out that to meet the needs of a number of non-profit organizations, including the Anti-Corruption Foundation … more than 588 million rubles [$7.9 million] The investigation committee said, “They were collected from individuals as donations, and these funds were intended only for the purposes of these institutions.”

The commission specifically accused Navalny of spending more than $ 4.8 million on personal expenses, money the investigative committee said was “stolen.”

The announcement of the criminal investigation marked an escalation of Moscow’s efforts to pressure Navalny. Authorities threatened Navalny with imprisonment for failing to comply with his suspended sentence in an old case if he does not attend Tuesday’s hearing in Moscow. Navalny is currently in Germany to receive treatment for his poisoning in August and has been given 10 hours to appear in court.

Moscow is believed to be behind the August attack on the opposition leader, which followed similar poisonings of other Kremlin critics.

Navalny said in an Instagram post that the new cases brought against him were part of Moscow’s broader effort to silence him over his criticism of the president. Russian President Vladimir PutinRussia admits to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin that the death toll from COVID-19 is three times what was previously reported, as Russian critic Navalny threatened to imprisonment if he did not immediately return from Germany Putin to get a Russian coronavirus vaccine more After poisoning.

“This was not difficult to predict. I said from the start … that they will try to imprison me because I am not dead on the plane and then track down the killers of my country. Because I have proven that Putin is behind this and that Navalny said on Tuesday that a thief is ready to kill whoever refused to remain silent about his theft.” .