Detained Putin Rival, Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny Faces More Trumped-Up Charges

As Russia continues to suffer heavy losses during the war on Ukraine, the Russian government has continued to push down against potential opposition by adding new charges against opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Tuesday.

Alexei Navalny, who is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most formidable political foe, shared on Instagram that an investigator came to him to say that the government opened up a new investigation focusing on “creating an extremist group to fan hatred against officials and oligarchs,” according to the Associated Press.

Along with charges of staging unsanctioned rallies with the group, Navalny said that the charges could add another 15 years to his sentence if he found himself convicted by the Russian courts.

The Kremlin, eager to stifle potential dissent from the people, has been cracking down on Navalny and his supporters for over a year, with many of his close associates facing criminal charges and being forced to flee the country because of it.

Navalny’s group was labeled an extremist organization by Russian authorities, and he himself was sentenced to 9 years in prison for fraud and contempt of court, with an additional two and a half years in prison for a parole violation while he was in Germany recuperating from an attempted poisoning.

Meanwhile, in Russia’s war against Ukraine, reports continue to come up that due to a failure of planning and logistics on the government’s part, Russia’s armies have lost so many men that they have been forcing people from Chechnya to fight in Ukraine, the Daily Beast reported.

Some human rights organizations claim that Chechnya’s people are given the choice of either participating in the war or facing criminal charges if they refuse to fight for Russia. Private mercenaries from the Wagner Group have also been reportedly hired by Russia as well.

Ukraine has claimed that over 30,500 Russian troops have been lost since the beginning of the war, and that supply problems in the Russian army have worsened to the point where many of them are forced to eat dogs for sustenance.