Fresh raids on the regional offices of opposition leader Alexei Navalny have been seen by supporters as attempts to intimidate his nonprofit anti-corruption group, recently designated by officials as a foreign agent.
Image: picture-alliance/AA/S. Karacan
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The most recent raids by Russian authorities on the regional offices of the Foundation for Fighting Corruption (FBK), set up by opposition leader Alexei Navalny, have been branded as scare tactics by members of Navalny's team and independent observers.
"The authorities are robbing Navalny's supporters in order to intimidate us, force us to give up and be silent. But we won't give in to these attacks and will continue to unmask crooks and thieves," the FBK regional office in Vladivostok wrote on its Twitter account.
The large-scale crackdown as well as its obvious demonstrative character attract attention, said Konstantin Dobrynin, the deputy head of Russia's Federal Chamber of Lawyers, to independent news portal RBK. Political analyst Alexander Kynev agreed, saying it was part of the authorities' "intimidation line." The effect of these tactics will depend on the reaction of the society, he told Echo of Moscow radio.
Who is Alexei Navalny?
Alexei Navalny is one of Russia's most prominent opposition leaders, having spearheaded protests against Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has been imprisoned in Russia since 2021.
Image: Imago Images/Itar-Tass/S. Fadeichev
Face of Russia's opposition
The lawyer-turned-political campaigner has been among the most prominent figures of Russia's opposition to President Vladimir Putin. Navalny came to prominence in 2008, when his blog exposing malpractice in Russian politics and among the country's major state-owned companies came to public attention. Revelations published on his blog even led to resignations, a rarity in Russian politics.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/TASS/V. Sharifulin
Disputed parliamentary elections
In 2011 Navalny was arrested for the first time. He ended up spending 15 days in prison for his role at a rally outside the State Duma in Moscow. A recent parliamentary election victory for Putin's United Russia had been marred by instances of ballot stuffing, reported by demonstrators on social media. Upon his release, Navalny pledged to continue the protest movement.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/A. Stenin
Second jail term
After being reelected president in 2012, Putin ordered Russia's Investigative Committee to launch a criminal inquiry into Navalny's past. The following year the campaigner was charged and sentenced again, this time for five years, for alleged embezzlement in the city of Kirov. However, he was released the following day pending affirmation from a higher court. The sentence was later suspended.
Image: Reuters
Anti-Kremlin platform grows
Despite being embroiled in legal troubles, Navalny was allowed to run in the 2013 Moscow mayoral election. A second-place finish behind Putin ally Sergei Sobyanin was seen as an overwhelming success and galvanized the Russian opposition movement.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Navalny takes to social media
His anti-Kremlin rhetoric led Navalny to be banned from appearing on Russian state-owned television. That forced him to deliver his political message over social media and his blog. His talent for public speaking, punchy use of language and humorous mockery of Putin and his loyalists mobilized a legion of young followers.
Image: Alexei Navalny/Youtube
Presidential ambitions
In December 2016, the opposition leader announced the formal start of his campaign to run for the Russian presidency in March 2018. However, repeated accusations of corruption, which his supporters say are politically motivated, ultimately barred him from running for public office.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/K. Kudryavtsev
Moscow's biggest protests in 6 years
In February 2017, anti-corruption rallies across dozens of Russian cities led to the arrests of over 1,000 demonstrators, including Navalny. The protests, believed to have been the largest in the Russian capital since 2012, were spurred by a report published by Navalny linking Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to a property empire valued at billions of euros. Navalny was released 15 days later.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/Evgeny Feldman for Alexey Navalny's campaign
Physically assaulted
Navalny was assaulted and hospitalized in April 2017 after being hit in the eye with a chemical green dye. The attack permanently damaged his right cornea. Navalny accused Russian authorities of stopping him from seeking medical treatment abroad due to the embezzlement conviction against him. He was eventually permitted by the Kremlin human rights council to travel to Spain for eye surgery.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/E. Feldman
Repeated arrests
In 2018, Navalny was jailed for 30 days. After his release in September, he faced another 20-day stint. In April 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Russia had violated Navalny's rights by holding him under house arrest for most of 2014 during the Kirov embezzlement case.
Image: Reuters/M. Shemetov
Alleged poisoning
In July 2019, only weeks after being released from a 10-day jail sentence, Navalny was again jailed for 30 days for violating Russia's strict protest laws. The opposition leader accused Russia of poisoning him with an allergic agent while in jail.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/navalny.com
Raids and frozen assets
Using YouTube and social media, Navalny had amassed a following of millions by late December 2019. Then police raided his Anti-Corruption Foundation headquarters (pictured), detaining him in the process. His staff said officials wanted to confiscate their tech equipment. Just a few months later, in March, Navalny reported that his bank accounts and those of his family members had been frozen.
Image: Reuters/FBK Handout
A plane — and a coma
On August 20, Navalny's spokesperson announced the activist became violently ill during a flight from Siberia to Moscow. The plane made an emergency landing, and Navalny was rushed to a hospital in Russia's Omsk and later evacuated to Berlin's Charite clinic (pictured). Doctors said he was in a coma. Navalny's associates claimed he had been poisoned and pointed to previous attacks on the activist.
Image: Reuters/C. Mang
Back from the brink
Navalny was taken out of the coma less than three weeks later and was said to be responsive. Not long afterwards, he was posting on Instagram, saying he was slowly regaining strength following weeks of only being "technically alive." The German government said labs in France and Sweden both confirmed that Navalny had been poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok.
Navalny had promised to return to Russia and he did so, despite warnings that he would be arrested. He was taken into police custody shortly after arriving in Moscow. The dissident had said he was "not afraid of anything." He was ordered to spend two years and eight months in a penal colony for violating terms of his probation while recovering in Germany from his poisoning.
Image: Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images
Further charges and years behind bars
Since being imprisoned in 2021, Navalny has faced even more charges and trials: in 2022, he was sentenced to an additional nine-year term for embezzlement and contempt of court, charges his supporters say are fabricated. Appearing via video from prison during a court hearing this spring, Navalny said he was now being charged with new alleged crimes that would further extend his time in prison.
Image: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo/picture alliance
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Liberal journalists targeted
This week's massive raids on Navalny's FBK headquarters in Moscow and other cities, along with the homes of its current and former employees across Russia, are the third since August. Previous raids on September 12 were carried out in more than 200 locations in over 40 Russian cities. The latest searches are seen as part of the large-scale crackdown on the most prominent Kremlin critic.
Police searched Navalny's offices in 30 Russian regions, seizing papers, laptops, cell phones, hard drives and other things "that are important for the investigation," the investigative committee said in a statement on Tuesday. Some of Navalny's regional coordinators were also interrogated.
In an unexpected move, authorities also searched three liberal regional media outlets, with investigators trying to find some connection to the FBK. According to Leonid Volkov, Navalny's senior aide, none of the targeted outlets have any ties to the anti-corruption group. Police also searched the home of DW guest columnist in Yekaterinburg.
The raids are part of an ongoing investigation into alleged money laundering that was opened against Navalny's foundation in August. According to the investigative committee, certain FBK employees allegedly received more than 75 million rubles ($1.2 million/€1.1 million) from unidentified sources between 2016 and 2018, and then channeled that money to FBK accounts.
Russian NGO fights for survival
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Alleged foreign donations?
Navalny founded FBK in 2011 in order to investigate notorious corruption cases among Russian officials. Among those targeted were Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika and Igor Sechin, the head of state-owned oil giant Rosneft. FBK claims to be solely financed by donations from its supporters.
Shortly after the start of Tuesday's raids, Navalny supporters began to make donations to the FBK bank account, with sums ranging from 300 to 2000 rubles (about $5-30/€4-28). Navalny ally Volkov wrote about the donations on Twitter, commenting that "this is what people's support looks like."
Donations like these were recently used by Russia's Justice Ministry as an excuse to designate FBK as a foreign agent, following legislation introduced in 2012. Nonprofit organizations which are engaged in political activities in Russia and which receive funding from abroad have been added to this list of foreign agents and are subject to additional controls on their finances.
FBK was declared a foreign agent on October 9 after authorities claimed the foundation had received donations of more than 140,000 rubles from sponsors in Spain and the US. Navalny has argued that FBK has never received "any foreign financing." In an interview with DW last week, he said it had cost him and his team "much time and effort to never receive any single kopek [coin] from abroad."
Yury Maslikhov, a Russian businessman based in Miami, donated funds to NavalnyImage: Privat
Who are Navalny's alleged foreign sponsors?
Roberto Fabio Monda Cardenas, one of FBK's supposed foreign investors from Spain, turned out to be hard to identify. A person with this name is listed in the register of Spanish companies as an owner of auto seller Moto Auto Monda SL and construction firm Fabrilad Contratas SL. However, DW was unable to locate these companies at their listed addresses in Madrid on October 10.
Financing from the US has been linked to Russian businessman Yury Maslikhov, who owns a company that produces sliding closet doors in Miami. In a phone interview on Monday, Maslikhov said he donated $50 to FBK via PayPal in May, transferring the money from his personal credit card to the account of FBK director Ivan Zhdanov. Maslikhov argued that the transaction can't be considered foreign funding, since he holds Russian citizenship. He also said he believes Russian authorities used his donation as a formal excuse to designate Navalny's foundation as a foreign agent.
