Liubov Sobol,
number two
in Alexei Navalni's team, was in the middle of the press conference at the offices of the Anticorruption Fund led by the opponent when a man who introduced himself as an official of the Public Prosecutor's Office entered the room, full of reporters and cameras.
Dressed in a suit, tie and a black coat, the official, summons in hand, was looking for Ivan Zhdanov, one of those responsible for the organization, whom the authorities have been tracking for days, accused of calling the mass protests last Saturday in support for Navalni.
"I am not a messenger," Sobol answered fluently, behind a lectern decorated with the slogan "Free Navalni."
The lawyer and politician was doing this Tuesday a review of the repressive wave of the authorities on the Russian opposition.
It was not an unprecedented visit.
The offices in a Moscow business center of the Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK), which has officially been dissolved following multiple demands from the authorities and businessmen in the Kremlin orbit and after being labeled a 'foreign agent', have seen multiple raids and records.
In late 2019, Navalni was arrested there.
While the authorities' siege on Navalni collaborators who have not yet been detained tightens, the opposition's allies have stressed this Tuesday that the mobilizations will not cease until they release the anti-corruption activist, detained just after returning to Moscow, accused of violating the terms of a 2014 sentence that imposed him a suspended jail sentence and probation, for failing to appear for appropriate reviews while he was recovering in Germany from the poisoning that nearly cost him his life.
After mass demonstrations last Saturday in more than a hundred cities in Russia, the opposition team is now seeking to harness the spark of discontent to maintain a long-term pulse and increased pressure on the Kremlin.
Also, make visible that the critics against the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, are not a marginal group, as the Government has alleged.
"Putin is trying to scare people to stop the protests and that translates into more repression," Sobol claimed.
The European Union decided on Monday to freeze the debate on new sanctions on Russia and leave it as a warning, pending the next trip of its High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, to Moscow next week.
Sobol and the rest of the Navalni team members who are not yet behind bars, have asked Brussels on Tuesday to reconsider the decision and to impose personal sanctions against several oligarchs with close ties to the Kremlin, such as billionaire Roman Abramovich, Denís Bortnikov , president of the Russian bank VTB, or Vladimir Soloviev, considered the chief propagandist of the Kremlin.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov charged again on Tuesday against the protests.
He has defined them as an act of “unprecedented violence”.
"Dialogue with the rioters is not possible," he insisted, "they must be prosecuted according to the law."
Authorities detained more than 3,600 people in Saturday's marches in 110 cities.
Almost a score of criminal investigations have been launched in Moscow, St. Petersburg and elsewhere on charges of incitement to riot, involvement of minors in illegal activities, violence against the police, vandalism, property damage and roadblocks.
The new laws on demonstrations approved last December make the crimes attributable more varied and the fines more severe.
Navalni's team affirms that in addition to those charges, cases related to the restrictions of the pandemic are also being opened.
Meanwhile, the fines against opposition leaders - from various parties - and against those arrested in Saturday's protests in support of Navalni are piling up.