Kremlin critics stay undaunted after yearlong crackdown

By DASHA LITVINOVA
Associated Press

MOSCOW (AP) — The prison sentence imposed a year ago on leading Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was a severe blow to Russia’s opposition. And then the situation got worse. Scores of activists, independent journalists and rights advocates were targeted over the past 12 months with raids, detained and designated as terrorists and foreign agents. Irina Fatyanova is the former head of Navalny’s office in St. Petersburg. She says legal opposition politics in Russia “ended almost entirely.” The setbacks began when Navalny was arrested in January 2021 upon returning from Germany where he spent months recovering from nerve-agent poisoning he blames on the Kremlin. His jailing triggered Russia’s largest wave of protests in years followed by mass detentions.