MOSCOW (AP) – Moscow police on Wednesday launched a series of raids on the apartments and offices of the family and associates of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was arrested and his brother was arrested.
The locations searched included Navalny’s apartment, where police detained his brother, Oleg, and a rented apartment where Navalny’s wife, Yulia, lived.
The video on Dozhd TV showed Yulia Navalny telling reporters at the window that the police did not allow her lawyer to enter the apartment.
The raids took place four days before the protests that Navalny’s supporters called on Sunday.
Demonstrations demanding his release took place in more than 100 cities across the country last Saturday, a powerful show of growing anger against the Kremlin. Nearly 4,000 people were arrested during the protests.
Other locations robbed by police on Wednesday were the offices of the Navalny anti-corruption foundation and the studio that produces its videos and online broadcasts. Videos and popular broadcasts have helped turn Navalny into the most prominent and persistent enemy of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
There were no immediate police comments on the searches. Navalny’s associates said on social media that the searches were linked to alleged violations of epidemiological regulations in last week’s mass protest in Moscow.
But “the real reason for the search for Navalny’s teams, relatives and office is Putin’s crazy fear,” Navalny’s team said in a message.
Navalny’s challenge to Putin increased after he was arrested on January 17 on his return from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from the nervous poisoning he blames on the Kremlin.
Two days after his arrest, his organization released an extensive video report about a seaside palace complex allegedly built for Putin. It has been viewed tens of millions of times, still causing dissatisfaction.
Navalny, the Kremlin’s most prominent and enduring enemy, fell into a coma while aboard a domestic flight from Siberia to Moscow on August 20th. He was transferred from a hospital in Siberia to a hospital in Berlin two days later. Laboratories in Germany, France and Sweden, as well as tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, have determined that he was exposed to the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok.
Russian authorities have refused to open a full criminal investigation, citing a lack of evidence that Navalny was poisoned.
In December, Navalny launched a recording of a phone call that he said he addressed to a man he described as an alleged member of a group of Federal Security Service or FSB officers, who poisoned him in August and then tried. to cover it. up. The FSB rejected the registration as false.
Navalny’s arrest and harsh police protests have drawn widespread criticism from the West and calls for his release.
Russia’s foreign minister said on Wednesday that a statement by the Group of Seven Foreign Ministers condemning his arrest was a “serious interference” in Russia’s internal affairs.