MOSCOW (AP) – Moscow police launched a series of operations on Wednesday against apartments and offices of the family and associates of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, arresting his brother.
The surveyed locations included Navalny’s apartment, where police detained his brother, Oleg, and a rented apartment where Navalny’s wife, Yulia, is living.
Video on the Dozhd TV station on the internet showed Yulia Navalny telling reporters at the window that the police did not allow her lawyer to enter the apartment.
The raids came four days before the protests that Navalny’s supporters called for Sunday.
Demonstrations calling for his release took place in more than 100 cities across the country last Saturday, a strong demonstration of growing anger at the Kremlin. Almost 4,000 people were arrested in these protests.
Other locations raided by police on Wednesday were the offices of the Navalny anti-corruption foundation and the studio that produces its videos and online broadcasts. Popular videos and broadcasts helped make Navalny the most prominent and persistent enemy of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
There was no immediate comment from the police on the searches. Navalny associates said on social media that the searches were related to alleged violations of the epidemiological regulations of last week’s mass protest in Moscow.
But “the real reason for searches on Navalny’s teams, relatives and offices is Putin’s crazy fear,” Navalny’s team said in a message.
Navalny’s challenge to Putin increased after he was arrested on January 17 on his return from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nervous agent poisoning he attributes to the Kremlin.
Two days after his arrest, his organization released an extensive video report about a palatial complex by the sea supposedly built for Putin. It was seen tens of millions of times, fueling even more discontent.
Navalny, the Kremlin’s most prominent and durable enemy, fell into a coma aboard a domestic flight from Siberia to Moscow on August 20. He was transferred from a hospital in Siberia to a hospital in Berlin two days later. Laboratories in Germany, France and Sweden, and tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, established that he was exposed to Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent.
Russian authorities have refused to open a full criminal investigation, citing lack of evidence that Navalny was poisoned.
In December, Navalny released the recording of a phone call he said he made to a man he described as an alleged member of a group of Federal Security Service officers, or FSB, who allegedly poisoned him in August and then tried to cover it. above. The FSB considered the recording to be false.
Navalny’s arrest and harsh police actions during the protests sparked much criticism from the West and called for his release.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that a statement by the Group of Seven’s foreign ministers condemning his arrest constituted “major interference” in Russia’s internal affairs.