Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s imprisonment following his recovery from a targeted chemical weapons attack is “harsh,” a Russian Embassy has acknowledged.
“The law is harsh but it is the law,” Moscow’s diplomatic team in Canada tweeted.
That social media post was part of a global effort to defend the independence of the Russian judiciary against a chorus of international rebukes of the dissident’s jailing. Other Russian diplomatic retorts followed the method of accusing other democratic nations of hypocrisy, while Russian President Vladimir Putin’s team denied any interest in the case.
“You know that we traditionally refrain from commenting on court verdicts and rulings,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “This is a court ruling that we simply have no right to comment.”
Putin took credit for Navalny’s treatment in Berlin last year, telling Russian audiences that he had approved the opposition leader’s transfer to German custody.
“His wife addressed me, and I gave the green light to have him treated in Germany that very second,” the Kremlin chieftain said in December.
German doctors concluded that Navalny had been poisoned by a military-grade nerve agent, the same style of chemical weapon used to attack former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom, where he was living.
“Russia is clearly maintaining an undeclared, offensive chemical warfare program, in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention,” then-State Department arms control lead Marshall Billingslea, citing the Navalny and Skripal attacks, told an international arms control forum on Jan. 19.
Navalny orchestrated a prank phone call with an apparent Russian FSB officer whom he tricked into describing the poison plot — a stunning discussion of the attack from one of Navalny’s purported assailants.
“He’ll go down in history as nothing but a poisoner,” Navalny said in a lacerating attack on Putin during his court appearance Tuesday. “We all remember Alexander the Liberator [Alexander II] and Yaroslav the Wise [Yaroslav I]. Well, now we’ll have Vladimir the Underpants Poisoner.”
Navalny was sentenced to more than three years in prison on the grounds that he had violated his parole related to a prior conviction while receiving treatment in Germany following an assassination attempt.
“You were obligated to provide documents and provide proper explanations for not attending,” a prison official told Navalny while describing his parole violation during the hearing.
Navalny reminded the official that he had been indisposed due to his poisoning, as governments and human rights activists around the world knew.
“How about I was in a coma?” Navalny said. “Then I was in intensive care. I provided medical documents. You had my place of residence and contact information.”
Navalny’s imprisonment did not forestall President Biden’s decision to extend a landmark arms control treaty with Russia, but his case looms over U.S. and European relations with Russia.
“Even as we work with Russia to advance U.S. interests, so too will we work to hold Russia to account for adversarial actions as well as its human rights abuses, in close coordination with our allies and partner,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in the bulletin announcing the arms control extension.
