Several Russian activists were detained on Sunday as part of a global day of protest called “Putin the killer” to mark the third anniversary of the poisoning of their jailed leader Alexei Navalny, EFE reported. Agerpres.

“Fear, violence, crime, this is what has supported Putin’s regime for 20 years (…) Putin is a criminal. Let’s shout as loud as possible,” says the message published in the Telegram channel of Navalny’s team.

According to human rights organizations, the police on Sunday detained several people who organized individual pickets in Moscow, including on Red Square, and in St. Petersburg.

“Freedom to Navalny. No war,” reads one of the banners in a photo released by opponents.

Navalny’s supporters also released photos of mass rallies in various cities around the world against Russian President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine.

“Now Putin has started the most terrible and absurd war of the 21st century against a neighboring country, where hundreds and thousands of people die every day,” they say.

World day of protest?

Navalny’s team, which accuses Putin of having the Federal Security Service (FSB) order his poisoning in 2020, has already announced a global day of protest in June to coincide with the opposition politician’s 47th birthday.

After several months of treatment at a German clinic, Navalny returned to Russia in early 2021 and was immediately arrested, imprisoned and sentenced to eight years in prison for alleged fraud.

On August 4, Navalny was sentenced to another 19 years in prison for extremism, a sentence that was sharply criticized by the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations.

It is currently unknown to which colony he will be transferred, although it is known that it will be a high-security colony.

In social networks, Navalny condemned the “criminal war” started in Ukraine by the head of the Kremlin, whom he accused of sending hundreds of thousands of Russians “to the slaughterhouse.”

The EU demands an impartial investigation into the poisoning of Navalny three years ago

The European Union (EU) again demanded on Sunday, three years after the case, an impartial investigation into the poisoning of Navalny, who accused President Vladimir Putin of ordering his killing in Siberia in August 2020.

“It has been three years since the assassination attempt with the use of a banned neurotoxic agent,” said Peter Stano, a spokesman for EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell, on the social network X (formerly Twitter).

Stano repeated the EU’s call for an “impartial investigation in full cooperation with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.”

At the same time, the European official again demanded Navalny’s “immediate and unconditional release” and insisted that Russia “is responsible for his safety.”

On August 20, 2020, during a flight from Siberia to Moscow, Navalny suddenly became ill, and the plane’s crew decided to deviate from the route and make an emergency landing in the city of Omsk so that Navalny could be given medical attention.

Two days after being hospitalized in Omsk, thanks to an international initiative, Navalny was transported to Berlin, where he underwent treatment in a local hospital.

On September 2, the German government announced that toxicological tests carried out on him unequivocally proved that Navalny had ingested a substance of the “Novachok” type, which is known to have been developed by researchers in the former Soviet Union and used, for example, in Great Britain against ex-Russian spy Serhiy Skripal

These results were later independently confirmed by three specialized laboratories in France and Sweden, as well as by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.