Russian politician Alexei Navalny announced on Monday the start of a new campaign against President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine as he begins a new trial on charges of “extremism and rehabilitating Nazi ideology,” Reuters reported and CNN.

Oleksiy Navalny, who has been in prison since 2021, announced on Monday the launch of a campaign aimed at turning Russians against the war in Ukraine, according to a statement published on his official website.

“Today begins another trial that will add many years to my prison term. But I don’t want to use this day to feel sorry for myself and other political prisoners. I want to call everyone to action and use this day to announce our new and very important project. A big propaganda machine. A machine of truth. We not only want to do it, but we will definitely do it in order to join forces in the fight against Putin’s lies and the Kremlin’s hypocrisy,” Navalny said, according to the statement .

Navalny, who posts on social media through his lawyers and allies, called on Russians to “join forces in the fight against Putin’s lies and the Kremlin’s hypocrisy.”

He addressed marketers and IT specialists, sociologists, political scientists, donors and volunteers.

“We will conduct an election campaign against the war. And against Putin. And that’s it. A long, stubborn, exhausting, but fundamentally important campaign where we will turn people against the war,” he said.

Russia’s next presidential election is scheduled for 2024, and Putin has yet to confirm whether he will run.

Navalny said he could still have a strong impact with targeted messaging, given that “now every grandmother has WhatsApp and Telegram.”

“Our activity, of course, will be recognized as illegal and subversive. All the forces of the state apparatus will be thrown into the fight against it,” Navalny said.

“Well, great, and we will throw all our forces into the fight against the apparatus of war, corruption and stupidity.”

He said Putin was an inept military leader who “foolishly and stupidly” led Russia to a dead end with his large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Putin has repeatedly told Russians they are waging an existential struggle in which the West is trying to use Ukraine to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Moscow.

Journalists were not allowed into the room where Navalny was being tried, and after a few minutes the video broadcast was interrupted

Navalny, 47, is already serving 11 and a half years in prison, and now faces a number of charges related to alleged “extremist” activities. There are practically no acquittals of oppositionists in Russia.

Journalists who arrived at the penitentiary where Navalny is being held in Melekhovo, about 235 km east of Moscow, were not allowed into the courtroom, but were initially able to watch the proceedings on video from a nearby camera, although the sound was barely audible. audible.

Bulky, emaciated with close-cropped hair and wearing a black prison uniform, stood and spoke loudly for three minutes. He unsuccessfully demanded that his elderly parents be admitted to the courtroom and challenged the authority of a Moscow judge to try him in a prison far from the capital.

But the video was later cut and a court spokesman said further proceedings would be held behind closed doors.

Prosecutors said they had obtained evidence of a planned “provocation” – a suggestion that Navalny’s supporters rejected.

“What could be safer than a high-security colony where no one can even enter the gym?” – his press secretary Kira Yarmysh reported on Twitter.

Navalny’s father, Anatoly, came out of prison with the words: “No shame, no conscience, no honor.”