Russian Court Upholds Prison Term for Putin Critic Navalny

MOSCOW—A Russian court denied an attraction by Alexei Navalny, sealing an earlier ruling that would see the well known Kremlin critic and anticorruption activist spend a prolonged sentence in a penal colony.

Mr. Navalny, whose detention in January sparked mass protests that mushroomed into a broader act of defiance in opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin, was sentenced earlier this month for violating the circumstances of a suspended sentence from 2014. Mr. Navalny was detained on returning from Germany, the place he put in months recovering from a poison assault that he blames on Mr. Putin. The Kremlin denies any involvement.

The rallies, which at one particular issue observed in excess of forty,000 people today on the streets of Moscow and thousands much more across the nation, had been satisfied with a sweeping crackdown by the authorities, who detained much more than ten,000. While Mr. Navalny’s allies have temporarily suspended huge-scale protests right up until the spring, the protest wave has cemented his situation as Mr. Putin’s most vocal critic and a potent danger to the Kremlin leader’s two-ten years-old rule.

At the hearing on Saturday, Mr. Navalny appeared within a glass cage for defendants and flashed a “V” indicator for victory. He rejected the idea that he was hiding from justice, declaring that his whereabouts had been publicly acknowledged, and he described the legal approach as absurd.

“If I was hiding, I would not be standing here in this aquarium,” Mr. Navalny told the court.