Navalny Condemns Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine

Aleksei A. Navalny, the jailed Russian opposition politician, used a court docket listening to on Thursday to sentence President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The struggle with Ukraine has been unleashed to cowl up the theft of Russian residents and divert their consideration away from the nation’s inner issues, from the degradation of its economic system,” Mr. Navalny mentioned.

Mr. Navalny, who’s serving a jail sentence that could possibly be prolonged by as much as 15 years if he’s convicted of embezzlement and different prices, went on to say: “This struggle will result in an unlimited variety of victims, destroyed lives and continued impoverishment of Russian individuals.”

Mr. Navalny, who constructed a big anti-corruption group and opposition occasion over the previous decade with 1000’s of supporters and places of work throughout Russia, was poisoned by a military-grade nerve agent in 2020 and arrested upon his return to the nation final yr.

A few of Mr. Putin’s critics describe his marketing campaign towards Mr. Navalny’s group, which has been declared an extremist group and banned, as a prelude to the assault he has launched towards Ukraine.

Mr. Navalny has continued to criticize Mr. Putin by way of Twitter, by way of attorneys who meet him sometimes in jail. On Tuesday, after Mr. Putin made an extended, aggrieved speech during which he appeared to put declare to all of Ukraine, Mr. Navalny printed an extended Twitter thread calling members of Mr. Putin’s inside circle “senile thieves.”