Putin critic Alexei Navalny blasts Putin’s ‘pointless’ war as he faces new 20-year jail sentence
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Vladimir Putin’s Russia is “floundering in a pool of either mud or blood” over its “senseless” invasion of Ukraine, Alexei Navalny said on Thursday as he stared down 20 years in jail.
Speaking during a closed door trial, Mr Navalny said Russia was “floundering in a pool of either mud or blood, with broken bones, with a poor and robbed population”.
Mr Navalny is charged with offences including financing extremist activity, publicly inciting extremist activities and “rehabilitating the Nazi ideology”. He is expected to hear his verdict on Aug 4 2023.
In a concluding statement in court, Mr Navalny once again called on Russians to stand up to the regime.
“For a new, free, rich country to be born... some sacrifice, some effort has to be made by everyone,” he said.
“Soon or later, Russia will rise again. And it depends on us to decide in what way it will lean in the future.”
The case comes more than a year into Russia’s full-scale offensive in Ukraine, which unleashed an unprecedented crackdown on Putin’s critics, with many now in exile or in jail.
Mr Navalny’s current prison sentence relates to embezzlement charges, which his supporters see as punishment for his political work.
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