
A court in Moscow held a hearing Wednesday to set the stage for imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to face a new trial on extremism charges that he has described as a Kremlin-ordered effort to extend his time behind bars.
Navalny, who exposed official corruption and organized massive anti-Kremlin protests, was arrested in January 2021 upon returning to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve-agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.