Russia jails Navalny campaigner for nine years for ‘extremism’

Former head of a local branch of the Kremlin critic Alexei NavalnyCampaign organization sentenced to nine years in prison Russian prison Navalny’s team said on Monday for participating in an “extremist community”.

Vadim Ustininwho ran Navalny’s local headquarters in the Siberian city BarnaulHe only carried out “legal political work,” Navalny’s team wrote in the Telegram application.
He was also convicted of involvement in a non-profit group whose activities “involve violence against citizens”.

Ostanin was arrested in December 2021 and detained in Moscow before being transferred to Barnaul, where he will be tried.
“Immediately upon my arrival in Barnaul from Moscow, without explanation, I was placed in a solitary cell, measuring about six square meters, in a cellar with a window covered with debris,” Ostanin wrote in a letter published by Navalny’s team.
“About a week later, the cell was flooded with ankle-deep water… There were rats, ants, and spiders in these cells,” he wrote.
Investigators pressured Usstanin to admit his guilt, Navalny’s team writes, but he refused.
Navalny, Putin’s most vocal critic, is serving sentences of up to 11-1/2 years in a penal colony for fraud and other charges he says were fabricated to silence him. Last week, Russia’s prosecutors asked a court to jail him for another 20 years in a new criminal trial on charges including extremism.
Last month, another Navalny campaign activist, Lilia Chanysheva7-1/2 years for “extremism.”