Russia has launched new criminal prosecutions against Alexei Navalny, a dissident already serving a 19-year prison term, it was announced on Friday, as Moscow tightens its crackdown on dissent since the start of its offensive in Ukraine, according to France Presse and Agerpres.

Oleksiy Navalny is in prisonPhoto: Oleksandr Zemlanychenko / AP / Profimedia

A charismatic anti-corruption fighter and the Kremlin’s No. 1 critic, Navalny avoided death after being poisoned in August 2020 with a military-grade neurotoxic substance while recovering in Germany for several months.

Arrested in January 2021 after returning to Moscow, 47-year-old Oleksii Navalny was sentenced to severe punishments, including the latest – in August – up to 19 years in prison for “extremism”.

Authorities are now charging him with “vandalism,” which could add three years to his sentence, he said, citing a letter from Russia’s Investigative Committee he received in prison.

“A new criminal case is opened against me every three months,” he condemned on social networks.

“The detainees, who were in solitary confinement for more than a year, have never had such a rich social and political life,” the opponent smiled.

Navalny has been in prison for almost three years

Navalny communicates mainly through messages he sends to his lawyers and then broadcasts online, mainly to condemn the invasion of Ukraine and urge Russians to continue their “resistance” to the Kremlin.

For more than two and a half years, Oleksiy Navalny alternated between being in an isolation cell with more or less strict conditions of detention, decisions of the colony administration, which he condemns every time.

The time spent behind bars has already affected his health, once in good physical condition, today Navalny looks weakened and aged.

For several years, Russia has faced an increasing crackdown on critical voices, a crackdown that accelerated sharply after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine began.

Almost all prominent opponents have been jailed or exiled, and thousands of ordinary Russians are persecuted for expressing their disagreement with the Kremlin, including on social media.