Supporters of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny around the world are marking the third anniversary of his near-fatal poisoning with demonstrations against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Dozens of protesters took to the streets in cities in Australia, Switzerland, Georgia, France, Estonia, New Zealand, and other countries on August 20 under the slogan “Putin is a Killer.”
Protesters also carried signs condemning Russia’s unprovoked 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Navalny’s supporters posted on Telegram a photograph of a man in Makhachkala, the capital of the North Caucasus region of Daghestan, holding a sign reading, “Release Navalny! No repression! No war!”
They posted a similar photo of a man holding such a sign on Red Square in Moscow.
OVD-Info, which monitors repression in Russia, reported that two people were detained in Moscow carrying signs calling for the release of political prisoners. It was not clear if those incidents were related to the Navalny protests.
Navalny, who is serving a total of 19 years in prison on extremism and other charges, was hospitalized on August 20, 2020, after falling seriously ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. He was later transferred to Germany for treatment of poisoning by a deadly nerve agent of the Novichok group.
His Anticorruption Foundation (FBK) conducted an investigation of the poisoning and determined it was carried out by agents of the Federal Security Service (FSB) acting at Putin’s behest.
The Russian authorities have never investigated the poisoning, with prosecutors claiming there was no evidence a crime had been committed.
Navalny returned to Russia in January 2021 and was immediately arrested. He has been in custody ever since.
His FBK and his network of regional offices were declared “extremist” organizations and shut down in Russia. Many of his supporters fled the country in the face of criminal cases or the threat of prosecution.