Navalny’s lawyers sentenced to prison terms. NGOs say the sentences clearly illustrate the Kremlin’s repression

A Russian court in the city of Petushki this Friday sentenced three lawyers involved in the defense of opposition leader Alexei Navalny for “links to extremist networks”. Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Lipster were sentenced to between three and a half and five and a half years in prison, having also been banned from practicing their profession for three years, in a trial that took place behind closed doors. Several Human Rights Defense Organizations criticized the summary manner in which the process took place, in a trial that clearly illustrates the worsening of the Kremlin’s repression of any oppositional speech, including in relation to the war in Ukraine.