MOSCOW (AP) – The Kremlin on Tuesday canceled calls from the West to release opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was arrested on his return to Russia from Germany after being treated for nervous poisoning. Moscow called his case “an absolutely internal matter.”
Navalny blames his poisoning on the government of President Vladimir Putin, who has denied it. Convictions for his arrest and calls from abroad for his release added to tensions between Russia and the West. Some European Union countries suggest more sanctions against Moscow.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “we cannot and will not take these statements into account.”
“We are talking about a fact of non-compliance with Russian law by a Russian citizen. This is an absolutely internal matter and we will not allow anyone to intervene in it and we do not intend to listen to such statements, “Peskov said.
Navalny, 44, was detained on Sunday night at passport control at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport after arriving in Berlin, where he was treated for the August poisoning. On Monday, he was ordered to be remanded in custody for 30 days during a court hearing that was hastily set up in a police station where Navalny was detained.
The Russian penitentiary service claims that Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition figure and anti-corruption activist, violated the probation terms of his suspended sentence based on a 2014 money laundering conviction, which was considered “arbitrary” by the European Court of Human Rights. Man.
Officials are looking to send Navalny to prison to serve a 3-and-a-half-year suspended sentence.
He interpreted the crackdown on him as a sign of Putin’s fear. Peskov rejected suggestions that Putin feared Navalny as “nonsense” and insisted he had broken the law. The spokesman said that the questions that the police had for Navalny “have nothing to do with the Russian president”.
Navalny fell into a coma while on a domestic flight from Siberia to Moscow on August 20 and was transported to a hospital in Berlin two days later. Laboratories in Germany, France and Sweden, as well as tests carried out by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, have determined that he was exposed to a Novichok nerve agent from the Soviet era.
Russian authorities insisted that doctors treating Navalny in Siberia found no traces of poison and refused to open a full-fledged criminal investigation.
Last month, Navalny launched a phone call in which he said he had addressed a man he claimed to be a member of a group of Russian Federal Security Service or FSB officers, who allegedly poisoned him in August and then she tried to cover him. up. The FSB rejected the registration as false.
After Navalny was imprisoned on Monday, his allies announced preparations for national protests on Saturday and released a video of Navalny urging people not to be “afraid” and “out on the streets.”
Peskov said that while calls to take to the streets were “alarming”, the Kremlin was not afraid of mass protests.
Also Tuesday, the Navalny Anti-Corruption Foundation launched a two-hour video investigation into what they called “Putin’s palace” – a Russian Black Sea estate they said would cost $ 1.3 billion. and it would have been financed by an elaborate system of corruption involving Putin’s inner circle. .
In the video produced and recorded before his arrest, Navalny claims that the property and motives that the Russian media linked to Putin years ago are 39 times greater than Monaco.
The video contained drone videos of the property and detailed floor plans that Navalny says were sent to his team by a contractor. 3D images of the interiors that the team said were created based on floor plans and other sources include a hookah, a small theater and a casino hall.
The investigation claimed that the estate, located in a secluded area, which is heavily guarded by Russian security forces, also had an underground ice rink and a tunnel from the mansion to the shore.
“It is the most secret and guarded unit in Russia,” Navalny said in the video. “It’s not a country house or a residence – it’s a whole city, or rather a kingdom.”
Within a few hours of posting on YouTube, the video received over 3 million views.
Peskov told Russian media that the allegations in Navalny’s investigation were “untrue.”
In a statement from pre-trial detention, Navalny encouraged his supporters to fight “corruption, lies and illegality”.
“I refuse to be silent, listening to the shameless lies of Putin and his corrupt friends. Corruption, lying and iniquity make the lives of each of us worse, poorer and shorter. So why should we put up with this? ”Read the statement, posted on Navalny’s Instagram page.
In the video, Navalny’s team again urged fans to take to the streets on Saturday. “Navalny has been fighting for our rights for many years. It’s our turn to fight for him “, says a short message at the beginning of the video.