Kremlin's crackdown on dissent: Russian court jails 3 lawyers who represented late opposition leader Navalny

Three lawyers who previously represented the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny were sentenced to prison on Friday as part of a broader crackdown on dissent by the Kremlin, marking a level of repression not seen since Soviet times.

Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin, and Alexei Liptser were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3 1/2 to five years by a court in Petushki, a town located about 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Moscow. The three lawyers were arrested in October 2023 on charges of involvement with extremist groups, a designation applied to Navalny’s networks by Russian authorities.

The case is widely regarded as an effort to pressure the opposition and deter defense lawyers from taking on politically sensitive cases.

At the time of their arrest, Navalny was serving a 19-year prison sentence on multiple criminal charges, including extremism. Navalny died in a Russian prison camp in February 2023.

According to the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Kobzev delivered a final statement in court on January 10, saying, “We are being tried for transmitting Navalny’s thoughts to other people.”

Navalny's networks were designated as extremist after a 2021 ruling that banned his organizations — the Foundation for Fighting Corruption and its network of regional offices — labeling them as extremist groups.

This ruling, which exposed anyone involved with the organizations to prosecution, was widely condemned by Kremlin critics as politically motivated and aimed at silencing Navalny’s activities.

According to Navalny’s supporters, the authorities accused the three lawyers of using their positions to relay information from Navalny to his team.

Navalny, a vocal anti-corruption campaigner and staunch critic of President Vladimir Putin, was arrested in 2021 upon his return from Germany, where he had been recovering from a nerve agent poisoning he attributed to the Kremlin. He was initially sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison.

Following two additional trials, his sentence was extended to 19 years. Navalny and his allies maintain that the charges against him were politically driven and accuse the Kremlin of attempting to imprison him for life.

In December 2023, Alexei Navalny was transferred from a penal colony in the Vladimir region, east of Moscow, to one above the Arctic Circle, where he died in February at the age of 47 under circumstances that remain unexplained. His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, and members of his team have alleged that he was killed on orders from the Kremlin, though officials have denied the accusation.

Two other lawyers who represented Navalny, Olga Mikhailova and Alexander Fedulov, are on Russia’s wanted list but no longer reside in the country. Mikhailova, who defended Navalny for a decade, has been charged in absentia with extremism.

Human rights advocates from Memorial, Russia’s leading rights group and a 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, have classified Kobzev, Liptser, and Sergunin as political prisoners. The group has called for their immediate release.