Retrial of the Kirovles Case

After rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, the Russian authorities were expected to address the consequences of the unlawful conviction. Instead of conducting a meaningful review, the case was effectively reheard from the beginning — and once again ended with a guilty verdict. The fabricated case concerned timber transactions involving the state-owned company Kirovles during the period when Navalny served as an adviser to the governor of Kirov Region. The court materials show how the Russian judicial system created the appearance of correcting an injustice while leaving the political substance of the case unchanged. For Navalny, this meant preserving the conviction that was later used to bar him from running in presidential elections. The case became an example of how a repressive system can formally follow procedures while still delivering the outcome it was designed to produce.