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With a Ban on Navalny's Group, Putin Sends a Message to Biden - The New York Times
Jun 09, 2021 2 mins, 10 secs
Navalny’s political movement as extremist, a remarkable broadside by President Vladimir V.

Navalny was arrested in January after having returned to Moscow upon recovering from a poisoning last year that Western officials say was carried out by Russian agents.

Navalny and his movement, and insists Russia’s judiciary is independent.

Putin has already signaled that he will reject any criticism of the Kremlin’s handling of the Navalny case by claiming that the United States has no standing to lecture others.

The “non-systemic opposition” is the Russian term for political groups that are not represented in Parliament and are openly calling for Mr.

Navalny and other opposition figures, but usually under pretexts, such as violation of rules on public gatherings, of laws unrelated to their political activities or, more recently, of regulations against gatherings to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

Behind the scenes, according to Western governments and rights groups, the Kremlin had gone further: assassinating or driving into exile journalists, dissidents and leaders of the political opposition.

Navalny’s nationwide network marked a new phase of a crackdown on dissent through a formal, legal process for disbanding opposition organizations, even though the country’s 1993 Constitution guarantees freedom of speech.

The Kremlin’s campaign against the opposition gained intensity after Mr.

Navalny at the airport and a court sentenced him to two and half years in prison on a parole violation for a conviction in an embezzlement case that rights group say was politically motivated.

Navalny’s movement, using a designation that likens its members to terrorists, without bothering to make much of a public case that the nonprofit groups were in fact seditious organizations.

The anti-extremism law offers wide scope for a sweeping crackdown on the opposition in coming days or months, Russian legal experts say, but it remains unclear how it will be enforced.

The case targeted three nonprofit groups, Navalny’s Headquarters, the Fund for Fighting Corruption and the Fund for Defending Citizens’ Rights.

Navalny disbanded one of the groups, Navalny’s Headquarters, which ran his network of 40 political offices, before the court had an opportunity to designate it as an extremist group.

Navalny’s aides said they hoped some offices would continue to work as stand-alone, local political organizations.

Navalny, Leonid Volkov, said in a YouTube video, warning that continuing to operate would expose supporters of the opposition leader to criminal prosecution.

Navalny’s groups were in fact seditious organizations disguised as a political movement.

These groups have persisted for years, despite unrelenting pressure from the Russian authorities, to push an anticorruption drive that has frustrated and embarrassed Mr

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