The jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny says he is facing potential life imprisonment on fresh charges of terrorism amid an ongoing campaign to silence the prominent Kremlin critic more than a year into the invasion of Ukraine.
Speaking over video link at a hearing before a separate trial for “extremism”, Navalny, 46, said investigators had told him he would also be tried by a military court for terrorist attacks he had allegedly committed while behind bars.
“It looks like I face life in jail for that case,” Navalny said.
Navalny is serving sentences totalling 11-and-a-half years on charges including fraud and contempt of court, which human rights groups say were made up to silence him.
He faces an additional sentence of up to 30 years in prison for “organising and financing of extremist activities” after his campaigning organisations were banned in Russia and labelled as “extremist”.
His ally Leonid Volkov said the accusations retroactively criminalise all the activities of Navalny’s foundation since its creation in 2011.
Navalny did not say what triggered the latest terrorism charges against him and there was no immediate comment from the Russian authorities.
Ivan Zhdanov, another ally of Navalny, said the terrorism charges could be linked to the killing of the pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in St Petersburg earlier this month.
Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed by a bomb blast as he was hosting a discussion with other pro-war commentators at a cafe on the banks of the Neva River in the historic heart of St Petersburg.
Russia’s national anti-terrorism committee had claimed in a statement the attack was “planned by the special services of Ukraine with the involvement of agents from those who had cooperated with the so-called Navalny Anti-Corruption Fund [Foundation]”.
Fears for Navalny’s health have been rising in recent months and have led to a rare petition earlier this year from a group of Russian lawmakers and doctors who have used their full names to demand that he receive better medical care, despite the risk to them of being prosecuted for voicing dissent.
His aides have described his health as “critical”, suggesting that the severe stomach pains that he was experiencing could be the result of slow-acting poison.
Navalny was poisoned with novichok, a Soviet-made nerve agent, on a trip to Siberia in 2020. He received treatment in Berlin and has accused Vladimir Putin of being behind the attack.
Navalny also said this week that prison guards had denied him food deliveries from friends and family. He said the guards delivered the food to his cell and then forced him to sign documents certifying that it would be destroyed.
In a separate case on Wednesday, Yevgeny Roizman, a prominent Kremlin critic and popular former mayor, went on trial in Ekaterinburg accused of discrediting the Russian army over the Ukraine offensive.
Roizman, 60, is the country’s only prominent opposition figure who is still in the country and not behind bars. He faces up to five years in prison.
In 2013, Roizman became Russia’s highest-profile opposition mayor and held the position in Ekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, for five years.
He remains a hugely popular figure in Ekaterinburg and for a long time the authorities chose not to detain him for his public criticism of the war.
Roizman pleaded not guilty at the start of the trial, wearing his signature blue jeans and a white T-shirt.
