Mass raids target Russian opposition chief

Russian investigators raided opposition campaign offices across the country on Tuesday, in the latest move to increase pressure on top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and his allies.

The early morning raids targeted more than 100 of Navalny’s campaign offices and homes of activists in 30 cities, the opposition said, including the headquarters of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation in Moscow.

An AFP journalist saw several armed interior ministry officers in black balaclavas enter the business centre where the foundation’s offices are located.

Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner who has emerged as President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, denounced the raids as an attempt to intimidate the opposition after a summer of protests.

“This will not stop us,” he said in a post on his blog shortly after the raids began.

“We are doing the right thing. And those who are against us are enemies of Russia.”

The Investigative Committee said Tuesday that the raids were part of an ongoing probe into money-laundering.

It said accounts of Navalny’s foundation had been frozen under a court order.

The raids followed similar mass searches last month.

In August, Russian investigators launched a money-laundering probe into Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation accusing it of taking money as donations that was procured illegally.

The 43-year-old lawyer said he had lost track of the number of times his foundation has been raided in the past two months and that 112 investigators are working on the case.

– ‘Seeking revenge’ –

Navalny has organised some of the biggest protests against Putin in recent years and his anti-corruption rhetoric has grown increasingly popular.

While barred from mainstream politics, he has worked hard to expose the ostentatious wealth of Russia’s elite and his video reports are watched by millions on social media.

Putin’s approval rating has been falling amid anger over unchecked corruption and declining living standards following the 2014 annexation of Crimea and Western sanctions.

Last month, investigators raided dozens of Navalny’s regional offices, as well as the homes of his supporters,

Navalny blamed the raids on Kremlin “hysteria” sparked by the ruling party’s losses in local elections last month.

He had instructed supporters to vote strategically to block pro-Kremlin candidates in Moscow and regions after opposition politicians were barred from standing. As a result, Kremlin allies suffered significant losses.

Lyubov Sobol, one of Navalny’s allies barred from the vote, described the latest raids as a “shameless” attempt at payback by the authorities.

The Kremlin, she said on Twitter, was “seeking revenge” and “trying to destroy our network of offices”.

A few thousand people were detained during street protests sparked by the barring of opposition candidates and several jailed for between two and five years over alleged attacks on police — sentences that critics described as unprecedented in their harshness.

This week, the Investigative Committee announced four more detentions of alleged participants in an unauthorised demonstration on July 27 and on Tuesday a fifth, Alexander Mylnikov, was detained.

– ‘Foreign agents’ –

The mounting pressure on Navalny’s foundation comes less than a week after it was declared “a foreign agent,” a tag carrying connotations of Cold War espionage.

The label stems from accusations that Navalny’s group is receiving funding from abroad and means it will be subject to even more state scrutiny.

Navalny claimed it was done on direct orders from Putin, calling him a “deceitful swindler”. The Kremlin denied the president had anything to do with it.

Putin signed the law defining “foreign agents” in 2012, after huge opposition protests. He described the legislation as “self-defence” against the financing of political activities in the country from abroad.

In a further move on Monday, the justice ministry called for the closing down of another respected rights group labelled a “foreign agent” since spring.

The head of the “For Human Rights Movement,” veteran rights campaigner Lev Ponomaryov, vowed to appeal against the decision in comments to TASS state news agency.