What Is Navalny? It might be helpful to start with what Navalny is not.
He is not Nemtsov, Limonov, Kasparov, or Khodorkovsky. All four of these men have at different times in the past decade been held up, both by the Western press and by a small sliver of the Russian intelligentsia, as potential leaders of the anti-Putin opposition. All four had flaws so glaring that even a porcupine, as the Russians say, could see they had no prospects. Nemtsov is a tall, handsome holdover from the Yeltsin era whose primary interest seems to be young women between the ages of 22 and 28. Limonov is a former scandalous man of letters turned scandalous nationalist politician. Alexei Navalny, Russian Opposition Politician, Given 3½-Year Sentence. MOSCOW—A Russian court sentenced Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to 3½ years in prison, but gave credit for about a year already served, sidelining the country’s most prominent opposition politician and likely fueling a burgeoning protest movement triggered by his detention last month.
Mr. Navalny, who was kept in a glass cage throughout the hearing, laughed to himself as the judge read the lengthy verdict. He drew a heart with his finger and looked at his wife, Yulia, as the judge neared the end of the sentencing. Russia detains over 2,700 at protests against jailing of Kremlin critic Navalny. The Secret Life of Russia’s Remote Freedom Fighter. On October 3, 2018, a 56-year-old man went to sleep on a green tarp, under plaid and camouflage blankets, in downtown Eugene, Oregon.
A bus camera captured his prostrate form next to a wall on Pearl Street at 8:39 p.m. Five minutes later, police say, another camera captured two teenagers “prowling,” checking car doors in a nearby parking lot. Within minutes, their paths connected, calamitously. By the time police arrived, five minutes after a 9:26 p.m. emergency call in which the man’s agonal breathing could be heard, the teens were gone, the man unresponsive. Pussy Riot Uses Detainment to Put Russian Imprisonment Tactics on Show.
Member of the Pussy Riot punk group Veronika Nikulshina arrives for a hearing at a courthouse in Moscow on July 31, 2018.
Russian police detained four members of the group immediately after they were released from custody on July 30. Vasily MAXIMOV/AFP/Getty Images Yesterday, July 30, four members of protest performance group Pussy Riot were detained again, only moments after being released from prison after serving 15 days for rushing the World Cup soccer field. 4 Russian Ambassadors Die Prematurely in 9 Month Period. Serving as a foreign diplomat has never been the safest business, nor has working for the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The intersection of those two gigs is even more dangerous. Russia's ambassador to Sudan was found dead in the African nation's capital of Khartoum Wednesday, according to The New York Times. That makes Mirgayas Shirinsky, a career diplomat in his early 60s, the fourth senior envoy from the Kremlin to "die prematurely" in the last nine months. Read the Full Text of Bill Browder's Testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee - The Atlantic.
The financier Bill Browder has emerged as an unlikely central player in the ongoing investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 elections.
Sergei Magnitsky, an attorney Browder hired to investigate official corruption, died in Russian custody in 2009. Congress subsequently imposed sanctions on the officials it held responsible for his death, passing the Magnitsky Act in 2012. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government retaliated, among other ways, by suspending American adoptions of Russian children. Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who secured a meeting with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort, was engaged in a campaign for the repeal of the Magnitsky Act, and raised the subject of adoptions in that meeting.
That’s put the spotlight back on Browder’s long campaign for Kremlin accountability, and against corruption—a campaign whose success has irritated Putin and those around him. The family of Vladimir Yakunin, a US-sanctioned ally of Vladimir Putin, uses these British companies to burnish their reputation — Quartz. The journey of a member of the global super-rich often traverses three main stages, as he (these are pretty much all men) moves from a position of power at home to a life of wealth and luxury abroad.
The stages were outlined by writer and journalist Oliver Bullough. In stage one, he gets his money offshore and away from the hands of the home government that might try to seize them. Putin on His Knees After 'Several Hundred' Russians Ask Him to Quit. We're late to this story because it's not a story, and yet ... there's something magical here that is worth commenting on.
Did you have a relaxing weekend? Then you clearly weren't one of the several hundred Russians who took to the street (not plural, because one street is more than enough to accommodate 300 people) demanding that Putin remove himself from Russian politics forever. Luckily we know about this overwhelming display of Russian discontent because of the fine reporting done by Reuters and other brave pursuers of the truth: Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny Hospitalized After Latest Attack. Alexei Navalny / Twitter Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was hospitalized on Thursday, after an unknown man attacked him outside his office in Moscow.
The assailant sprayed a green antiseptic into Navalny’s face, drenching his right eye in the noxious chemical. Secret palaces, vineyards and yachts of Dmitry Medvedev. Russian youth from Moscow to Siberia slam ‘Putin the thief’ Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in court after arrest. Russian Beauty Queens Stare Down Putin.
An extraordinary thing seems to be happening in Vladimir Putin’s Russia these days.
Even as every other stratum of political opposition falls away, Putin finds himself besieged on an entirely unexpected new front: the runways of Russia’s beauty pageants. In November of last year, Russian Miss Earth contestant Natalia Pereverzeva gave one of the most stunning answers to a beauty-contest question in history. Asked what made her proud of Russia, she voluntarily added what made her ashamed. She stated: U.S. Prosecutors Are Out to Crack Russia’s Crooked Money Machine. The feds bring an alleged lawyer for the Russian mob before a grand jury in the Magnitsky investigations. U.S. federal prosecutors just won’t let go of their three-year-old criminal action against alleged beneficiaries of stolen and laundered Russian taxpayer money.
It was launched as part of what’s known as the Magnitsky Affair, a contentious story of scandal, cover-ups and smear campaigns that dates back more than a decade. Over the years, the Kremlin has used every tool it can, including the fate of Russian orphans who might be adopted by Americans, as it tries to thwart calls for justice from the U.S. Congress and the administration. So far, the Kremlin has failed. Pussy Riot Member Yekaterina Samutsevich Freed On Appeal; Sentence Upheld For Others.
By Maria Tsvetkova MOSCOW, Oct 10 (Reuters) - A member of punk band Pussy Riot was freed on appeal on Wednesday but a Moscow court upheld prison sentences for two others imposed over a raucous cathedral protest against Vladimir Putin, who said they had got the jail terms they deserved. Moscow City Court confirmed the two-year prison sentences handed down to Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina but suspended the sentence on Yekaterina Samutsevich. Her lawyer told the court that Samutsevich had not performed the 'punk protest' near the altar of Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February because she had been stopped and led away before it took place.
Pussy Riot Members Maria Alyokhina And Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Sent To Russian Prison Camps. By Nastassia Astrasheuskaya MOSCOW, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Two female members of Russian punk group Pussy Riot convicted of protesting against President Vladimir Putin in a cathedral have been sent to prisons far from Moscow despite requesting to serve out their terms in the capital, a lawyer said on Monday. Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, were convicted of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" in August and sentenced to two years in jail, a punishment that many in the West said was too harsh.
Their stunt - bursting into Moscow's main Russian Orthodox Cathedral to urge the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Putin - infuriated the church and many Russians. But Kremlin critics said their trial was part of a crackdown on dissent orchestrated by Putin, who began a six-year presidential term in May. Russia Set To Redefine Treason, Sparking Fears. Hide captionRussian President Vladimir Putin is widely expected to sign a parliamentary bill that expands the definition of high treason. Critics say the definition is overly broad and would give the government sweeping powers to crack down on opponents. Alexei Nikolsky/AP/RIA-Novosti.
Russian Court Convicts Opposition Leader. Yuri Kochetkov/European Pressphoto Agency Russian officers held back protesters in Moscow on Thursday. Crowds turned out to protest the verdict against Aleksei Navalny. Vladimir Putin Pardons Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Alexei Navalny: Russian opposition leader found guilty. 10 lessons from a billionaires’ battle. Russian Tycoon Loses Multibillion-Dollar Case Over Oil Fortune to Kremlin Favorite. Ex-Russian Lawmaker Who Turned on Putin Shot Dead in Kiev. Russian Lawyer Nikolai Gorokhov Thrown From Window Was a Witness for the U.S. Government.