Russia blacklists more Navalny allies, six months after his death
By AFP
August 16, 2024 10:01 PM
Russia added at least nine more people linked to late opposition leader Alexei Navalny to its blacklist of "terrorists and extremists" on Friday, exactly six months after he died in prison.
Navalny's former spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh and the chair of his Anti-Corruption Foundation Maria Pevchikh were added to the list, according to the website of Russian financial monitoring service Rosfinmonitoring.
The Kremlin critic's exiled lawyers Olga Mikhailova and Alexander Fedulov were also listed, as were opposition journalist Antonina Kravtsova and activist Olga Komleva, who are both in pre-trial detention.
Also included were Dmitry Nizovtsev, a host on Navalny's YouTube channel, and Nina Volokhonskaya, the channel's producer. Alexei Malyarevsky, a software programmer jailed for seven years for donating to Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, was also listed.
Russia added opposition figure Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny's wife, to the list in July. Rosfinmonitoring is tasked with combatting the financing of people and groups Moscow deems "terrorists" or involved in "extremist activity," and can freeze the bank accounts of those listed.
Russia's authorities often apply those labels to dissidents and those who have campaigned against the Kremlin or its offensive in Ukraine. Navalny's organisations were outlawed in Russia and are labelled "extremist", and the opposition leader himself was sentenced to 19 years in prison on charges of "extremism."
Among other entities on Rosfinmonitoring's blacklist are the militant jihadist group Al-Qaeda, the "international LGBT movement" and historical fiction writer Boris Akunin.