Lilia Chanysheva, a former leader of late opposition politician Aleksei Navalny's team in Ufa who is serving 9 1/2 years in prison on extremism charges, has asked President Vladimir Putin to pardon her.
Sources showed RFE/RL a letter from Chanysheva addressed to Putin in which the 42-year-old activist stresses that she has served 3 1/2 years of her prison term and fully paid off the 400,000 ruble ($4,330) fine she was ordered to pay by a court in her native Republic of Bashkortostan. She concludes the letter, dated April 19, by asking the president to release her.
Russia's state-owned RT news agency first reported about Chanysheva's letter to Putin on May 13, stressing that her parents, both 70 years old, also plan to ask Putin to pardon their daughter.
Chanysheva was initially sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison in June 2023 after a court in Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, found her guilty of creating an extremist community, inciting extremism, and establishing an organization that violates citizens' rights.
Last month, the Supreme Court of Bashkortostan extended Chanysheva's prison sentence by two years after prosecutors said her initial sentence for extremism was too lenient.
Chanysheva headed the local unit of Navalny's network of regional campaign groups until his team disbanded them after a Moscow prosecutor went to court to have them branded "extremist."
The request was accepted, effectively outlawing the group.
Chanysheva's defense team have said the charges appeared to be retroactive to the period of time before the organization she worked for had been legally classified as extremist.
Navalny died on February 16 in an Arctic prison while serving a 19-year term on extremism and other charges he and his supporters said were trumped up and politically motivated.
Several opposition leaders and associates of Navalny have since been charged with establishing an extremist group.
Since Russia launched its full-scale unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, several of Navalny's former associates have been charged with discrediting the Russian armed forces, distributing "fake" news about the military, and extremism.
The former leader of Navalny’s team in the region of Altai Krai, Vadim Ostanin, was sentenced last year to nine years in prison on an extremism charge.