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Ex-SPD leader Platzeck: he would have wanted a "significantly different verdict"
Photo: Soeren Stache / dpa
The Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny has to go to prison for several years.
The controversial judgment is now triggering international criticism.
In Germany, too, there are discussions about how to deal with the Russian government in the future, and calls for sanctions are again being voiced.
However, the chairman of the German-Russian forum, Matthias Platzeck, does not consider such punitive measures to be effective.
This would only satisfy in the short term, said Platzeck on Deutschlandfunk.
"The last sanctions of the last six years have not improved anything, but worsened almost everything."
"Where we can make progress with Russia is when we maintain talks at eye level," the SPD politician continued.
He still considers Willy Brandt's formula "change through rapprochement" to be correct.
"This is the only way in the long term that reasonable conditions will arise in Russia and that the relationship between Russia and the rest of the world, especially us Europeans, will improve little by little."
But for him there is no question that Navalny will have to be released.
He would have wished for a "significantly different judgment, a much more confident way of dealing with Herr Navalny," said Platzeck.
"I would like a completely different approach to civil society."
More than a thousand arrests during protests
On Tuesday, a Moscow court sentenced Navalny to three and a half years in a prison camp because, in the judge's view, he had repeatedly violated probation conditions in an earlier criminal case from 2014.
According to his lawyers, a previous house arrest may be credited to him.
Then he would have to be in a prison camp for two years and eight months.
In Russia, too, the condemnation sparked Navalny's protests.
Human rights activists spoke of more than a thousand arrests during the demonstrations.
The police used force against the protesters.
A large number of security forces were out and about in Moscow on the day of the trial.
While in the courtroom, Navalny had called on his supporters to protest again.
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asc / dpa