Russian police carry out mass raids against opposition activists [View all]
Source: The Guardian
Russian state security services have carried out simultaneous nationwide raids on the Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s regional headquarters four days after pro-Putin candidates suffered massive losses in the Moscow city assembly elections.
The operation, involving more than 1,000 officers in at least 200 individual raids and ostensibly in connection with money-laundering charges Navalny says are politically motivated, was carried out across 40 towns and cities the length and breadth of Russia, from Murmansk in the Arctic to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast. The homes of dozens of Navalny activists were also searched.
Leonid Volkov, a key Navalny aide, described it as a “pure act of political repression”.
Navalny directly linked the raids to a desire for revenge by the Kremlin after its losses in the Moscow elections. Navalny had instead urged his supporters to vote tactically at the polls to inflict the maximum possible electoral damage. Ratings for Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party have slumped to a near-record low of about 32% amid growing poverty and a five-year increase in the national pension age.
-snip-
Marc Bennetts in Moscow
Thu 12 Sep 2019 15.02 BST
First published on Thu 12 Sep 2019 09.31 BST
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/12/russian-police-raid-homes-and-offices-of-opposition-activists
= new reply since forum marked as read
