While the whole world watches the war in Ukraine in horror, another war continues inside Russia — a war against the opposition. Today marked the sixth court hearing in Alexei Navalny’s fraud case.
First, the court questioned a witness who had read on Telegram channels that Alexei had called the judge a “gramophone,” and took offense. That was why she came to court today. In truth, she could not formulate her complaints against Navalny on her own, so she read them aloud from a sheet of paper, loudly and with theatrical emphasis.
This was already the second witness to claim offense on the judge’s behalf. Both women belonged to the same political movement, which calls itself “Politics 2.0.” Altogether, members of this movement filed 38 complaints against Navalny demanding that he be held liable for insulting the court. Very thin-skinned members indeed.
Alexei asked whether this movement supports Putin’s policies. The judge disallowed the question, but the witness still managed to shout that of course it does.
The second witness was Investigative Committee expert Ivan Snegirev, whose financial analysis formed the basis of this case.
When asked directly how much money had been transferred to Alexei from the accounts of the ACF (Anti-Corruption Foundation), Snegirev answered: “Zero.” To the accounts of his family members: “Also zero.”
So the Investigative Committee’s own official analysis effectively refuted the investigator’s position. At that very moment, the court should have dismissed the case and dropped all charges against Alexei.
Alexei himself asked the witness whether he understood what Navalny was being tried for. The expert laughed in response, and the judge, as usual, shouted that the question was disallowed.
The court then moved on to questioning the “injured party,” Mikhail Kostenko. He is a pensioner who donated 50,000 rubles to Navalny’s presidential campaign, and a month later decided that Navalny had “misled him” and demanded the money back.
In fact, the complaint was written for him by the corrupt blogger Ilya Remeslo, who had already been questioned in this trial as a witness. Remeslo claimed he had not known Kostenko before and had simply felt sorry for the supposedly deceived old man, but he was lying — Remeslo’s friend and legal partner is married to Kostenko’s stepdaughter.
Incidentally, we returned the money at the very first request. But that did not stop the Investigative Committee from designating Mikhail Kostenko as an “injured party” in a fraud case four years later.
He did not appear in court — instead, he was brought in by video link, on a screen behind a barrier tape. In other words, they were apparently too embarrassed even to question him in person. At first, the judge and prosecutor insistently tried to persuade Kostenko that he wanted the hearing closed to the press, but he refused. Because the connection was so poor, everyone had to shout. At one point, an exhausted Kostenko suddenly barked that he had no complaints against Navalny. Everyone froze, but the judge quickly recovered and continued tormenting him with procedural questions.
It is obvious that both the prosecution and the judge would have preferred to question Kostenko in secret — because otherwise no one would have any doubt that he is just a random person who was simply pressured into filing a complaint against Navalny.
In the end, the questioning was held in public. Kostenko said he remembered almost nothing, that the name “Anti-Corruption Foundation” meant nothing to him, and that he did not know how Alexei had supposedly deceived him. The money he had transferred was returned to him. He has no complaints against Navalny.
The prosecutor demanded that Kostenko’s earlier testimony be read out, and the judge, as always, allowed it. According to that testimony, for example, Kostenko had watched many of Alexei’s anti-corruption videos and believed him, but then saw vacation photos and became disillusioned. But in court, Kostenko himself said plainly that he had not seen a single Navalny video.
As the prosecutor read out the testimony and asked questions, Kostenko was nearly in tears, saying that all he wanted was for this to be over as soon as possible.
Then they questioned his wife, Vera Kostenko. She did appear in court and was much more composed, but she too claimed to remember almost nothing. One thing she remembered clearly: it was their son-in-law’s friend, Ilya Remeslo, who suggested they file the complaint, immediately after he had spoken with their son-in-law.
For the sixth hearing in a row, we have seen the same thing: the Investigative Committee has nothing on Navalny. They were ordered to fabricate a case against him, but they have failed — prosecution witnesses are retracting their statements, and the alleged victims say they have no complaints.
We all know how courts work in Russia. There is no illusion that the verdict has already been written, that it will be guilty, and that the sentence is already decided. But if there is anything we can influence, it is only through spreading information. And if there is a moment when we can do that, it is now.
Putin is trying to imprison Navalny forever. We must all unite against Putin and not let him do it. Do not stay silent.
Freedom for Alexei Navalny.