Navalny ally Ksenia Fadeyeva ‘sentenced to nine years in jail’

Ksenia Fadeyeva, who led jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny's now-banned organisation in the Siberian city of Tomsk, was sentenced to almost a decade in prison, her supporters said.

"The 'judge' Khudyakov has ordered a nine-year sentence against Ksenia Fadeyeva" for extremism, her supporters' Telegram channel said.

"Of course, the defence will appeal to the highest court," it added.

The ally of Kremlin critic was sentenced on charges of creating an “extremist organisation,” the independent news website Mediazona reported.

Ksenia Fadeyeva, 31, Navalny’s former Tomsk regional coordinator, was detained in December 2021 after a Moscow court outlawed Navalny’s political network as “extremist”.

Fadeyeva, who was elected to the Tomsk city council in 2020, was one of the few Navalny allies to remain in Russia despite the risk of criminal prosecution from the “extremist” designation.

Tomsk’s Sovetsky Court found Fadeyeva guilty and handed her a nine-year sentence in a prison colony.

The state prosecutors had requested a 10.5-year sentence for Fadeyeva.

She denied the charges, which carry a maximum punishment of 12 years in prison.

Fadeyeva’s trial was closed to the media and the public.

Navalny’s political network was designated “extremist” in 2021, putting employees, volunteers and supporters at risk of criminal prosecution.

'Isolate Alexei'

Navalny mobilised huge anti-government protests before being jailed in 2021, after surviving an attempt to assassinate him by poisoning.

He first spent most of his detention at the IK-6 penal colony, some 250 kilometres (155 miles) east of Moscow in the Vladimir region.

A court extended his sentence to 19 years on extremism charges.

It also ruled he be moved to a harsher special regime prison, usually housing particularly dangerous prisoners.

After weeks of uncertainty, Navalny was found at IK-3 — "Polar Wolf" — a strict-regime colony.

Russia will hold a presidential vote in March 2024, with Putin the undisputed favourite.

Several Kremlin-friendly parties are due to put forward candidates for the vote, but the real opposition has been sidelined.

Moscow has for years weakened Russia's independent politicians and activists, a clampdown that accelerated after the Kremlin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine in 2022.

Navalny's movement in particular has been targeted by Kremlin repression.

— With additional input from AFP