On Friday, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in prison on charges of supporting “extremism.” This is actually his fifth criminal conviction, and, according to a report from USA Today, “Navalny and his supporters have repeatedly criticized his criminal convictions as politically motivated and described them as attempts by Russian President Vladimir Putin to silence his archenemy.”
Navalny has been incarcerated since January 2021. He has reportedly been an outspoken critic of the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin and was found guilty of multiple charges, including creating and participating in an extremist community, financing extremist activities, organizing such a community, making public calls for extremist actions, and involving minors in dangerous activities. Additionally, Daniel Kholodny, the former technical director of Navalny’s YouTube channel, was also convicted of similar offenses, receiving a lesser sentence of eight years in a penal colony.
“The United States strongly condemns Russia’s conviction of opposition leader Aleksey Navalny on politically motivated charges,” Blinken tweeted Friday. “The Kremlin cannot silence the truth. Navalny should be released.”
Blinken’s tweet was met with a barrage of comparisons to Joe Biden’s Department of Justice and its multiple indictments of Donald Trump, Biden’s main political opponent, on charges that experts have called weak yet could subject Trump to being handed down a sentence of hundreds of years in prison if convicted.
