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Russia raids Navalny’s offices but Kremlin critic is free
MOSCOW, Dec 26, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Russian police on Thursday conducted
fresh searches at Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation,
with his team calling the raid a new bid to disrupt their work.
Navalny, 43, said he was not detained, contrary to earlier reports. “I was
simply forcibly dragged out of the office (for some reason),” he said on
Twitter.
Navalny also said the police were seizing “everything,” and suggested the
raids took place Thursday because he was to address supporters in a weekly
YouTube programme in the evening.
Navalny also linked the searches to his refusal to remove a 2017 report
that accused Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of massive corruption and has
racked up nearly 33 million views on YouTube.
A picture posted by his staff on Twitter showed Russian President Vladimir
Putin’s top opponent sitting on the floor with his legs crossed and two men
in black uniform looking at him.
A video released by the team showed how law enforcement agents tried to
break into the FBK offices using a power saw that sent sparks flying.
“New Year’s fireworks,” Navalny’s ally Nikolai Lyaskin quipped on Twitter.
Another video showed men clad in black uniforms, masks and helmets searching
the FBK premises.
– Opposition reporter detained –
In a separate development, Russia’s top opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta
said Thursday that authorities had searched the Moscow apartment of its
special correspondent Yulia Polukhina.
After the raid, the mother-of-two was taken to “an unknown destination,”
the award-winning newspaper said in a statement.
“So far this looks like an abduction,” Novaya Gazeta said.
It added that the searches were linked to Novaya Gazeta publications
including those concerning “illegal armed groups” operating in the war-torn
eastern Ukraine where Kiev is battling against pro-Kremlin separatists.
Authorities have been steadily ramping up pressure on Navalny and his
allies in recent years with regular searches and short jail terms for the
Kremlin critic and his allies.
The FBK offices were searched several times this year.
The foundation’s door, which has been repeatedly broken down, now has its
own account on Twitter.
“I am alive and hanging in there,” the account said on Thursday.
Navalny helped organise major protests against the government this summer
that saw tens of thousands march in Moscow to demand fair elections.
A number of people received jail terms for taking part in those protests.
On Wednesday, Navalny said that one of his allies had been forcibly
conscripted and sent to serve at a remote Arctic base, a move his supporters
also said amounted to kidnapping.
Ruslan Shaveddinov, a project manager at Navalny’s FBK foundation, went
missing Monday after police broke into his Moscow flat and his phone’s SIM
card was disabled.
He resurfaced Tuesday at an air defence site on the Novaya Zemlya
archipelago in the Arctic Ocean.
Separating the Barents and Kara seas, the Novaya Zemlya islands were used
by the Soviet Union to conduct nuclear tests.
Opposition supporters said the treatment of Shaveddinov was a new low in
Moscow’s fight against dissenters.
BSS/AFP/BZC/1910HRS