Russia
Penalty increased for Navalny employee
Lilia Chanysheva stands in a courtroom at the Kirovsky District Court during a hearing in June 2023. photo
© -/AP/dpa
Russian opposition activist Lilla Tschanysheva was sentenced to seven and a half years in a prison camp in June 2023. Now, to the dismay of Kremlin opponents, a court has made the sentence even stricter.
The spokeswoman for the Navalny team, Kira Yarmysch, spoke of a “horror” verdict from an inhumane system. She had already criticized the first verdict as a “crime” of Russia’s arbitrary justice system. “A brave, honest woman has been convicted for fighting for Russia’s future,” wrote Yarmysch on the X news network (formerly Twitter).
Chanysheva had led the team of Navalny supporters in Ufa for four years, but said she stopped her work when the Russian judiciary classified the organization as “extremist” in 2021 and thus effectively banned it.
According to authorities, Navalny himself died on February 16 in the penal camp with the unofficial name “Arctic Wolf” in the Siberian Arctic region of Yamal. The circumstances of his death are not clear. The politician, who was weakened by a poison attack in 2020 and repeated solitary confinement in the camp, is said to have collapsed during a tour of the icy prison yard and died despite attempts to resuscitate him. According to Navalny’s team, the death certificate mentions “natural” causes. Navalny’s relatives speak of murder.