Russian court finds jailed Kremlin critic Navalny guilty of fraud

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, accused of fraud and contempt of court, his lawyers Olga Mikhailova and Vadim Kobzev are seen on a screen via a video link during a court hearing at the IK-2 corrective penal colony in the town of Pokrov in Vladimir Region, Russia March 22, 2022. Navalny is already serving a two-and-a-half year sentence at a prison camp east of Moscow for parole violations. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina

A Russian court found jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny guilty of large-scale fraud and contempt of court on Tuesday, a move likely to extend by years the time that President Vladimir Putin's most prominent critic spends in jail.

Navalny is already serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence at a prison camp east of Moscow for parole violations related to charges he says were fabricated to thwart his political ambitions.