Aides from jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny‘s foundation vowed to continue to pressure President Vladimir Putin, even as they have been forced into exile.
Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s top adviser, and Maria Pevchikh, the head of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, explained to reporters while in Washington, D.C., that they intend to keep international attention on Navalny in an effort to ensure that Putin would either release him or to decrease the likelihood of an assassination attempt, Axios reported.
“We have a slogan that Putin has to regret that he pushed us out of the country,” said Volkov.
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Volkov and Pevchikh have been forced out of Russia into exile and have had to operate out of Vilnius, Lithuania.
Volkov explained to the outlet that he doesn’t have to worry about whether or not officials from the Russian government will take away any of the foundation’s equipment.
Navalny, who has been an outspoken Kremlin critic, was arrested in January after he arrived in Moscow from Germany. He had previously been given a Dec. 29 deadline in which to return to Moscow or risk detainment.
Navalny was forced to spend five months in Germany in order to receive treatment after an attempt on his life via poison. He and international leaders criticized Russia for allegedly being responsible for the poisoning, a claim still denied by the Kremlin.
Prior to Navalny’s arrest, he ran through details on how the foundation would continue to operate with Volkov on the chance that he was jailed.
“We didn’t know, and we were sure at the same time,” Pevchikh said about the pair’s knowledge as to whether or not they had known Navalny would end up detained.
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Navalny was awarded the top human rights award by the European Union on Oct. 20, even as he remains jailed as part of his 30-month sentence.
As part of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, Navalny would have been scheduled to receive $582,000 at a Dec. 15 in-person meeting, but the ceremony will be impossible due to his imprisonment.
