NewsSociety

Russia fines former Navalny lawyer over online post wishing Putin a happy birthday

A Moscow court has fined a former lawyer for the late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny 50,000 rubles (€520) for “discrediting” the Russian army over a social media post wishing Vladimir Putin a happy birthday, Mediazona reports.

The case stemmed from a post lawyer Leonid Solovyov published on the Russian social media platform VKontakte last year. According to an “expert assessment” cited in the case, Solovyov described the war as the worst of all possible decisions and wrote that “resources are being burned in its service while people grow poorer.”

He pleaded not guilty. At the hearing, he said Putin’s decisions, including the one to wage war in Ukraine, “have led only to misery for our country.”

Solovyov has represented a string of high-profile clients in politically charged cases, including Navalny, who died in prison; pediatrician Nadezhda Buyanova; former Mediazona publisher Pyotr Verzilov; and journalists from the independent media outlet DOXA.

Share
More on the topic
Article image
NewsSociety
Head of Russian children’s hospice foundation detained for spreading ’false information’ about military
Topics
Society
More news
Russia fines former Navalny lawyer over online post wishing Putin a happy birthday
Russians held in US immigration detention to launch hunger strike over poor conditions and mistreatment
Anna Politkovskaya Award goes to Ukrainian and Russian women journalists imprisoned by Russia
Russian man declared ‘unfit for service’ reportedly forced to sign army contract
Former fighter with Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine detained on suspicion of killing two Moscow women
Russia, Belarus and four Central Asian countries sign pact to exchange information on alleged extremists
Readers' choice
Most popular articles from the last two weeks
Is modern Russia fascist?
Interviews
Is modern Russia fascist?
Historian and political theorist Roger Griffin on the Putin regime, the hallmarks of fascism and the perils of dwelling on ‘taxonomy’
Vlad Dokshin
Milana Ochirova
Interactive map: Attacks on Russian territory, updated in real time
Data
Interactive map: Attacks on Russian territory, updated in real time
As Ukraine fights back, the war has spread to at least 60 Russian regions
Alesya Sokolova
Ksenia Storozheva
A starving human shield
Stories
A starving human shield
Residents of occupied Oleshky are dying of hunger as Russia refuses to evacuate them. Locals describe life in the isolated frontline town.
Olga Vasilyeva