Jailed Navalny calls for anti-war protests across Russia on Sunday, His press secretary put on wanted list

LONDON, March 11 (Reuters) – Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny called for anti-war protests in Moscow and other cities on Sunday.

“Mad maniac Putin will most quickly be stopped by the people of Russia now if they oppose the war,” a message on Navalny’s Instagram account said.

“You need to go to anti-war rallies every weekend, even if it seems that everyone has either left or got scared…You are the backbone of the movement against war and death,” he said.

Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, the biggest assault on a European country since World War Two. Moscow calls its actions in Ukraine a “special operation” to disarm and “denazify” Ukraine. Ukraine and Western allies call this a baseless pretext for a war of choice that has raised fears of wider conflict in Europe. 

The protest monitoring group OVD Info says 13,908 people have been detained at anti-war demonstrations in Russia since the start of the invasion.

Navalny was jailed last year when he returned to Russia after receiving medical treatment in Germany following a poison attack with a nerve agent during a visit to Siberia in 2020. Russian authorities denied carrying out such an attack.

He is able to publish social media posts through his lawyers and allies.

Meanwhile, Russian authorities have put Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s press secretary Kira Yarmysh on an international wanted list and are seeking that she be sent to jail, a Russian police database showed on Friday.

Yarmysh left Russia last year after a court imposed 18 months of restrictions on her freedom of movement for breaching COVID-19 safety rules. 

Russian authorities have cracked down hard on the opposition, and many of Navalny’s most prominent allies have left Russia rather than face restrictions or jail at home.

Photo – A handout still image taken from a handout video footage posted in the Instagram account of Alexei Navalny shows Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny after a court hearing at a police station in Khimki outside Moscow, Russia. EPA-EFE/NAVALNY PRESS TEAM