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| Aleksei Navalny, Critic of Putin, Gets Suspended Sentence in Fraud Case | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| MOSCOW — A Moscow court on Tuesday convicted the anticorruption crusader and political opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny of criminal fraud charges and handed down a three-and-half year suspended sentence. The Moscow police braced for a confrontation with thousands of people planning to protest the verdict outside the Kremlin. | MOSCOW — A Moscow court on Tuesday convicted the anticorruption crusader and political opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny of criminal fraud charges and handed down a three-and-half year suspended sentence. The Moscow police braced for a confrontation with thousands of people planning to protest the verdict outside the Kremlin. |
| The punishment, while sparing Mr. Navalny jail time, suggested that the Russian authorities were moving to sideline Mr. Navalny but not turn him into a political martyr. The verdict came as critics of the government were hoping that the country’s mounting economic problems would begin to loosen President Vladimir V. Putin’s grip on power. | The punishment, while sparing Mr. Navalny jail time, suggested that the Russian authorities were moving to sideline Mr. Navalny but not turn him into a political martyr. The verdict came as critics of the government were hoping that the country’s mounting economic problems would begin to loosen President Vladimir V. Putin’s grip on power. |
| Mr. Navalny’s brother, Oleg, who was charged with him, received a three-and-a-half-year sentence, but it was not suspended and he was immediately jailed. | Mr. Navalny’s brother, Oleg, who was charged with him, received a three-and-a-half-year sentence, but it was not suspended and he was immediately jailed. |
| “You are punishing me worse by taking my brother,” Mr. Navalny shouted in the courtroom. He had tears in his eyes as his brother was placed inside a cell in the courtroom. | “You are punishing me worse by taking my brother,” Mr. Navalny shouted in the courtroom. He had tears in his eyes as his brother was placed inside a cell in the courtroom. |
| The stiffer sentence for Mr. Navalny’s brother, who was widely viewed as a pawn in a larger political battle, was a surprise. It signaled that the Kremlin was adopting a more sophisticated, if crueler, strategy in seeking to suppress Mr. Navalny’s political activities. | |
| Mr. Navalny’s own house arrest, imposed last February, was expected to end as soon as the suspended sentence was officially in place. | |
| It was unclear if by not jailing Mr. Navalny the government expected him to restrain his activities for fear of harm befalling his brother, or if the effort was intended to portray the prosecution as more driven by facts than politics. | |
| Once again, as with the unexpected pardon last year of another Putin nemesis, the former Yukos oil company tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the verdict seemed to underscore the all-encompassing power — and capriciousness — of the Russian leader and the system that he appears to command by oblique signals. | |
| After nearly a year under house arrest, Mr. Navalny, a lawyer who led months of street protests that followed parliamentary elections tainted by accusations of fraud in December 2011 and then ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Moscow in 2013, has said that he no longer has hope that Russia’s future can be determined at the ballot box. | After nearly a year under house arrest, Mr. Navalny, a lawyer who led months of street protests that followed parliamentary elections tainted by accusations of fraud in December 2011 and then ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Moscow in 2013, has said that he no longer has hope that Russia’s future can be determined at the ballot box. |
| “What are we going to go out on the streets for?” he asked in a recent interview with The New York Times. “There are no elections at all anymore. Talking about falsifications is absurd because none of us are allowed to run.” | “What are we going to go out on the streets for?” he asked in a recent interview with The New York Times. “There are no elections at all anymore. Talking about falsifications is absurd because none of us are allowed to run.” |
| In another interview, with The Guardian, he said, “In Russia, it will not be elections that provide a change of government.” | |
| Far from cowering, Mr. Navalny has publicly and repeatedly accused for Mr. Putin and his closest associates in and out of government of theft and graft on a vast scale. He accused them more recently of fomenting war and death in Ukraine for the sake of securing and expanding power. | |
| He has also made no secret of his own presidential ambitions. And though he has lived for years on the brink of lengthy imprisonment, has shown no willingness to leave Russia as other prominent critics of Mr. Putin have done in recent years. |