Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, who is serving a total of 19 years in prison on extremism and other charges that he rejects as politically motivated, said a new criminal case has been brought against him.
In posts issued on December 1 through his associates on X, formerly known as Twitter, Navalny said he received a letter from Russia's Investigative Committee informing him that a case had been opened against him "for a crime under Part 2 of Article 214 of the Criminal Code," which deals with vandalism.
SEE ALSO: Navalny Placed In Punitive Confinement For 23rd Time Since August Last Year"Rarely an inmate, confined to a solitary cell for over a year, has had such a vibrant social and political existence," one of the messages attributed to Navalny on X said. "It means that they really initiate a new criminal case against me every three months."
On November 21, Navalny was placed in 15-day punitive solitary confinement for an unspecified violation after having finished his previous solitary confinement a day earlier.
It was the 23rd time he had been placed in solitary confinement since August 2022, totaling 266 days in punitive incarceration.
Navalny, one of President Vladimir Putin's most vocal critics, had his sentence increased to 19 years in August after being found guilty of creating an extremist organization and was transferred to a harsher “special regime” facility.
His previous sentence was handed down in 2021 after he arrived in Moscow from Germany, where he had been recovering from a poisoning attack he blames on the Kremlin.
He was Russia's loudest opposition voice and galvanized huge anti-government rallies before he was jailed.
Three of Navalny's lawyers -- Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin, and Aleksei Lipster -- were taken into custody in October and prosecuted for allegedly participating in an extremist community because of their association with Navalny and his foundation to root out corruption.