(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 18, 2013) The Russian opposition will try to take advantage of Alexei Navalny’s conviction in pursuing its political ends, but protests against this will not be very significant, says Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst and a member of the Public Chamber. “Some actions have been prepared and will be held, but they will be very […]
» Read more
(Alexey Eremenko, RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 18, 2013) This week, a little-known Russian business consultant named Pyotr Ofitserov finally took his eldest daughter on a long-promised visit to Moscow’s famed Tretyakov Gallery. They squeezed in the outing between errands on Tuesday afternoon, as Thursday Ofitserov expects to be jailed for up to five years. “It’s funny how much […]
» Read more
(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 18, 2013) Russian public figures and foreign diplomats on Thursday weighed in on the five-year jail sentence handed down to anti-Kremlin activist Alexei Navalny, with opinions ranging from grim pessimism among liberals and “disappointment” from the U.S. ambassador to mixed forecasts by economic analysts and claims of a fair trial by pro-Kremlin pundits. – […]
» Read more
(RIA Novosti, The Moscow News – themoscownews.com – July 18, 2013) Russia’s stock market fell sharply on Thursday according to Moscow Exchange data, after investors took in the news that opposition blogger Alexei Navalny had been found guilty in a controversial fraud trial and sentenced to five years in jail. The court in the city of Kirov, about 900 kilometers […]
» Read more
(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 18, 2013) Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader and anti-corruption campaigning blogger who was handed a five-year-jail term on Thursday, is to withdraw his candidacy for the upcoming election for Moscow mayor, his campaign office said. Navalny’s campaign office will proceed with canceling his registration for the early Moscow mayoral vote, scheduled for September 8, […]
» Read more
(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 18, 2013) The sentence of opposition activist Alexei Navalny is affecting the interests of small and middle-sized businesses and will lead to the outflow of young lawyers and businessmen from Russia, leader of the Civil Platform party Mikhail Prokhorov said. “The sentence passed on Alexei Navalny and Pyotr Ofitserov is not just a sentence to the […]
» Read more
(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 18, 2013) The Russian presidential Human Rights Council will conduct an independent public analysis of the criminal case in which a Kirov court sentenced opposition activist Alexei Navalny to five years in prison on Thursday. “I have already talked with a number of Council members. I believe the Council will decide to arrange a public legal […]
» Read more
(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 18, 2013) Russian senators said they proposed waiting for a superior court ruling on the case of opposition activist Alexei Navalny, sentenced in Kirov to five years, and that if there was a political component in the trial, then only that Navalny’s violations had been checked in priority. “It is not a fact that superior agencies […]
» Read more
(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Jason Corcoran & Henry Meyer – July 17, 2013) Alexey Navalny faces possible imprisonment tomorrow in the highest-profile case against a critic of President Vladimir Putin since the prosecution of former oil billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky. A judge in Kirov, 900 kilometers (560 miles) northeast of Moscow, will rule on charges that Navalny defrauded state-owned timber company […]
» Read more
(RFE/RL – rferl.org – July 17, 2013) RFE/RL correspondent Tom Balmforth asked Moscow residents ahead of the verdict on July 18 what they expected in the embezzlement case against Aleksei Navalny. Here are some of their answers: Igor, 25, transportation sector “I think Navalny will be found guilty. It’s most likely a political case and possibly was initiated to stop […]
» Read more
(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – July 17, 2013) Six candidates will run for mayor of Moscow in the upcoming snap elections on September 8, Valentin Gorbunov, the chairman of the Moscow City Elections Commission, said on Wednesday, when the formal registration of candidates was concluded. Aside from Acting Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, who formally resigned and called the […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 16, 2013) Opposition leader Alexei Navalny will be registered on Wednesday as a candidate for the Moscow mayoral elections, just one day before the verdict for the KirovLes embezzlement case is scheduled to be delivered, Kommersant reported. The Kremlin critic is awaiting the verdict in a criminal case alleging that he embezzled 16 million […]
» Read more
(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 11, 2013) Opposition candidate Alexei Navalny will add spice to the Moscow mayoral election and draw Muscovites to polling stations, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko told Interfax. “The participation of Navalny in this campaign will make it heated and draw attention to the mayoral election and this interesting candidate. It will capture the attention of Muscovites, […]
» Read more
(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – July 9, 2013) With Moscow’s election months away and the result likely predetermined, the next big showdown in the Russian capital should come as early as next week. In the last couple days, more than 6,000 people have already joined a special Facebook page calling on Russians to gather on Moscow’s Manezh Square […]
» Read more
(Moscow News – Anna Arutunyan, Editor & Correspondent at themoscownews.com – July 8, 2013) With the verdict in opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s trial scheduled for July 18, the bets are on: will he get six years in jail like the prosecutors asked? Or a suspended sentence? What’s interesting about this question is that the answer has very little to do […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – July 8, 2013) Prosecutors on Friday asked a Kirov court to sentence political opposition leader Alexei Navalny to six years in prison and a $30,000 fine on charges of stealing timber from a state-owned company in 2009, but even in the face of such charges Navalny was defiant in closing arguments. Many […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – June 28, 2013) Despite numerous hurdles facing opposition leader Alexei Navalny, including the six criminal cases against him and campaign conditions skewed in favor of the incumbent mayor, Navalny pledged to fiercely campaign his own program at Moscow’s mayoral elections on Sept. 8. “Moscow is not developing quickly enough; its development paradigm […]
» Read more
(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – June 19, 2013) [Video here: rferl.org/content/navalny-game-russia-opposition-moscow-trial/25022010.html] Aleksei Navalny may be on the ropes, but at the same time he’s also on something of a roll. The on-the-ropes part was in full display in Kirov on June 18 when Judge Sergei Blinov flat-out refused to allow Navalny to call any defense witnesses in his […]
» Read more
(RIA Novosti – Kirov, June 18, 2013) Judge Sergey Blinov refused on Tuesday (18 June) the request of the defence that 13 witnesses, including an auditor and several experts, be summoned to court in at the Kirovles (Kirov Timber) trial, a RIA Novosti correspondent has reported from Kirov’s Leninskiy court. On Monday, defence lawyer Svetlana Davydova submitted a request for […]
» Read more
(Interfax – MOSCOW, June 17, 2013) Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny, founder of Anti-Corruption Foundation, wrote on Twitter on Monday that detectives were currently searching his brother’s apartment. Interfax has been unable to obtain confirmation of Navalny’s words. In December, brothers Alexei and Oleg Navalny were charged with fraud and money laundering. “Alexei Navalny set up a limited liability company […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – June 18, 2013) Opposition leader Alexei Navalny took the stand in court on Monday, denying charges that he stole 10,000 cubic meters of timber from KirovLes in 2009 and saying he had tried to fight corruption at the state-owned company. Navalny, who is also a prominent anti-corruption blogger and a lawyer, began […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – June 17, 2013) Billionaire politician Mikhail Prokhorov has challenged the candidacy of lawyer Alexei Navalny for the Moscow mayoral election, saying that he wouldn’t be able to cope with the demands of the job, a news report said Monday. The Civil Platform party leader Prokhorov, who last week pulled out of the mayoral race, also […]
» Read more
(Interfax – June 13, 2013) Opposition activist Alexei Navalny believes that the Kirov Court hearings on the Kirovles case scheduled by the court for June 13 and 14 are aimed at blocking his nomination for Moscow mayor, said his lawyer Sergei Kobelev. The lawyer said that his client Navalny had notified him that he was supposed to attend a meeting […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – June 11, 2013) The trial against opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his business partner Pyotr Ofitserov on embezzlement charges entered its 12th day on Monday, with the defense demanding that the judge in the case recuse himself for allegedly creating unequal conditions for the defense and prosecution. The judge, Sergei Blinov, of […]
» Read more
(Interfax – MOSCOW, June 9, 2013) Opposition blogger Alexei Navalny, recommended for nomination as a mayoral candidate by the Bureau of the opposition Republican Party of Russia – People’s Freedom Party (RPR-PARNAS), will not pass through the municipal filter as a serious candidate, said First Vice President of the Center for Political Technologies think tank Alexei Makarkin. “Navalny can act […]
» Read more
(Interfax – MOSCOW, June 9, 2013) The Bureau of the Opposition Republican Party of Russia – People’s Freedom Party (RPR-PARNAS) adopted a recommendation on Sunday to nominate opposition blogger Alexei Navalny to run for Moscow mayor, the party’s co-chairman Vladimir Ryzhkov told Interfax. “The recommendation was adopted following a preliminary discussion. By law, the recommendation has no legal force. The […]
» Read more
(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – June 4, 2013) It’s pretty obvious why Sergei Sobyanin announced today that he will resign as Moscow mayor and run in a snap election in September. What isn’t so clear is whether the gambit will pay off. Appointed in 2010 by then-President Dmitry Medvedev and rubber-stamped by the Moscow City Duma, Sobyanin could […]
» Read more
(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 28, 2013) Russian financial market experts differed in their assessments of the impact of the situation surrounding Sergei Guriev, the rector of the New Economic School, which came to light on Tuesday evening. They agreed that the episode could negatively affect Russia’s investment appeal, but did not think it signaled a shift in the fundamental investment […]
» Read more
(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 29, 2013) Minister for Open Government Mikhail Abyzov expects to continue cooperating with economist Sergei Guriev who reportedly resigned from the post of rector of the New Economic School. “I am confident that our cooperation with Sergei Guriev will continue despite the decision, whether he formally remains a member of the expert council and government commission […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Bratersky – May 30, 2013) A minister said Wednesday that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s Open Government would continue to work with prominent liberal economist Sergei Guriyev despite media reports that he resigned as head of a major college and left the country under pressure from authorities. Mikhail Abyzov, the Open Government liaison holding the […]
» Read more
(opendemocracy.net – Ekaterina Loushnikov – May 25, 2013) Ekaterina Loushnikova is radio and print journalist based in the city of Kirov Charismatic opposition leader Aleksey Navalny is on trial in the provincial capital of Kirov, 900km from Moscow. He is controversially accused of stealing timber worth 16 million roubles in 2009; if found guilty, he will spend his next few […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – May 23, 2013) Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader currently on trial for fraud, has expressed certainty that he has slim chances of getting a not guilty verdict, and he is almost certainly right. The inevitability of the ruling is not due to the fact that he is such an outspoken critic of […]
» Read more
(RIA Novosti – KIROV, May 22, 2013) Russia’s beleaguered opposition figurehead, Alexei Navalny, was given a boost in his fight against controversial embezzlement charges on Wednesday when a regional governor testified in his favor. Navalny and a former political ally, Kirov businessman Pyotr Ofitserov, are charged with heading a criminal group that investigators say embezzled 16 million rubles’ ($500,000) […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – May 16, 2013) A witness in the trial on large-scale embezzlement charges against opposition blogger Alexei Navalny testified Thursday that the defendant had offered a disadvantageous contract to a state company that he is accused of defrauding. Larisa Bastrygina, deputy director of KirovLes, told the Leninsky District Court in Kirov that Navalny, […]
» Read more
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, April 28, 2013) Russian opposition leader Aleksey Navalny says that Russia does not need federalism and should become a unitary state in which cities rather than the current federal subjects would be the fundamental political link between individual Russian citizens and the Russian state. In an interview published in the May issue […]
» Read more
(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – April 25, 2013) President Vladimir Putin said his methods don’t have anything in common with those of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, and that the trials of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the members of the Pussy Riot feminist punk group were not politically motivated. Putin made the remarks in response to a […]
» Read more
(Interfax – Moscow, April 23, 2013) Aleksey Navalnyy, one of the leaders of the Russian non-establishment opposition, is known to this or that degree to 53 per cent of Russians and 51 per cent perceive him negatively, VTsIOM (Russian Public Opinion Research Centre) pollsters have told Interfax news agency presenting the results of their study. According to the VTsIOM, Navalnyy […]
» Read more
(RFE/RL – rferl.org – April 23, 2013) KIROV, Russia — A court in Russia’s Kirov Oblast has rejected a request from anticorruption blogger Aleksei Navalny for a further delay in his trial. Navalny had asked for more time for his lawyers to examine the 28 volumes of documents associated with his case. Navalny is accused of being involved in the […]
» Read more
(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Julia Reed in Moscow – April 17, 2013) “A case against Navalny is a case against all of us,” insist the friends and supporters of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is due to go on trial for corruption in the regional city of Kirov on April 17. Unfortunately, many other Russians appear not to […]
» Read more
(Interfax – Moscow, April 16, 2013) Opposition representative Aleksandr Navalnyy has published his income declaration for the year 2012, according to which his income from his work as a lawyer amounted to nearly R7.5m (about 183,000 dollars). Navalnyy posted his declaration on his webpage in Live Journal (http://navalny.livejournal.com/789792.html). According to the documents, the income from his activities as a lawyer […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 15. 2013) Days before the much-anticipated trial of opposition leader Alexei Navalny is scheduled to begin, an Investigative Committee spokesman has suggested that Navalny’s constant criticism of the government caused investigators to “accelerate” work on the case against him. When someone “uses all his energy to bring attention to himself” and “provokes the government,” […]
» Read more
(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – April 8, 2013 – Anna Arutunyan) Anna Arutunyan is an editor and correspondent at themoscownews.com Coming back from a monthlong break, I’ve seen a flurry of activity. There’s an anti-corruption drive that’s either meant to curb capital flight or get a better grip on State Duma deputies, the court date for Alexei Navalny’s embezzlement trial […]
» Read more
(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – April 5, 2013) Oppositionist blogger Alexei Navalny has revealed he wants to be president, with a trial less than two weeks away that could jail him for up to 10 years on embezzlement charges. “I want to become president,” Navalny said in an interview with the independent Dozhd TV late Thursday evening. […]
» Read more
(Interfax – Moscow, April 4, 2013) Opposition activist and blogger Aleksey Navalnyy is becoming increasingly known among the Russians, however his rating among the electorate is going down and less countrymen believe him, a sociologist survey has shown. In April 2011, Navalnyy was practically unknown to his countrymen – 94 per cent of people confirmed this to sociologists, whereas in […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Winning – April 4, 2013) A Kirov court on Wednesday set a date to begin hearing a criminal case against opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who describes as “absurd” the charge that he embezzled $515,000 from a state timber company several years ago. Navalny’s lawyers had asked Kirov’s Leninsky District Court to arrange preliminary hearings […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jonathan Earle – February 15, 2013) State Duma Deputy Vladimir Pekhtin asked to be temporarily relieved of his duties as chairman of the Duma’s Credentials and Ethics Commission until the conclusion of a probe into allegations that he failed to declare more than $2 million in property holdings in the U.S. state of Florida. Although […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – February 8, 2013) Investigators on Thursday raided the apartment of Vladimir Ashurkov, director of the Foundation for Fighting Corruption and an anti-Kremlin activist, in connection with a criminal case against opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Navalny, who started the foundation, is accused of stealing 100 million rubles ($3.3 million) from the now-defunct Union […]
» Read more
(Russia Beyond the Headlines – www.rbth.ru – Yulia Ponomareva – January 29, 2013) The office of Kirov Governor Nikita Belykh was searched by investigators Tuesday in a probe into the privatization of a local vodka factory, which investigators claim was sold for a below-market price in 2010. Prominent opposition leader and anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, who served as an adviser […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jonathan Earle – January 21, 2013) Two opposition figures saw their legal troubles mount on Friday, as investigators pressed ahead with an embezzlement charge against protest leader Alexei Navalny and opened a criminal case into allegations that leftist activist Leonid Razvozzhayev falsely maligned them. Investigators presented the final version of a charge against Navalny that […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. Jan 18 (Interfax) – Opposition campaigner Alexei Navalny said his prosecution in the fraud case connected with the Kirovles logging company is part of the law enforcement services’ plan to obstruct his political activities and prevent him from running in elections. “The goal is to obstruct my political activities and to prevent my running in elections, all of which […]
» Read more