A Moscow court on Tuesday sentenced Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to two years and eight months in a penal colony for violating the terms of his probation for a previous conviction, which he argues was politically motivated. The decision marks the first time the fierce Kremlin critic has been sentenced to serve an extended prison sentence, and it comes as tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets across the country on consecutive Saturdays to protest his arrest.
Navalny was detained at a Moscow airport in January after returning from Germany, where he had been flown for treatment after being poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok while on a trip to Siberia. An investigation by open-source researchers at Bellingcat later revealed that members of the Russian security services were involved in orchestrating the poisoning, which could have been lethal.
