Russia Deplores ‘hysteria’ over Navalny as Talk of Sanctions Grows

In spite of criticism abroad and protests at home, Russia on Wednesday said it saw no reason to change its actions towards dissident Alexei Navalny, who was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in a penal camp.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the “hysteria” about the Navalny trial was “exaggerated” and that Western media was one-sided in its reporting about Russia – not just regarding Navalny.

The Kremlin also defended its actions against the protests in support of Navalny, which human rights organisations said led to many people being injured and have prompted talk abroad of fresh sanctions against Russia.

Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin was concerned about the scale of the demonstrations and called protesters “provocateurs.”

A Moscow court ruled on Tuesday that Navalny should serve jail time for breaking the rules of his probation when he failed to check in with authorities while he was in Germany recovering from a poison attack that has been blamed on Russian domestic intelligence.

Navalny has been on probation since 2014 in a fraud case, which he has long condemned as political and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said involved “arbitrary and unfair” proceedings.

His wife, Julia Navalnya, thanked everyone for their support in an Instagram post on Wednesday and said she was doing OK.

In recent weeks, her life had consisted of police stations, courts and searches, wrote Navalnya, who has been detained twice during protests.

The rights portal OVD counted more than 1,400 detentions during the rallies against the jail sentence for Navalny, of which more than 1,100 took place in Moscow.

Protesters were also taken into police custody in nine other cities, according to the human rights activists.

The Interfax news agency reported that about 1,300 detentions were made after the demonstrations in Moscow, with many of the participants expected to be handed a fine or having to spend days in custody.

The UN Human Rights Office demanded that Russia free the demonstrators who took to the streets to support Navalny.

Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement that her office was “deeply dismayed” over Navalny’s sentencing.

Meanwhile, the editor-in-chief of an opposition news portal said he had been jailed for several weeks for sharing a joke on Twitter interpreted by the Russian judiciary as a call to join pro-Navalny protests.

Sergei Smirnov, head of the portal Mediasona, was handed a 25-day sentence, he wrote on Twitter late on Wednesday, for a post he wrote two weeks ago joking about his resemblance to a Russian punk singer.

The tweet mentioned the date of a pro-Navalny rally and was interpreted by the judiciary as calling for unauthorised protests.

His editorial team said the journalist was arrested during a walk with his five-year-old son two days ago.

Numerous media and journalists’ associations, including Reporters Without Borders, expressed their solidarity with Smirnov and dismissed the allegations as “absurd.”

In Europe, pressure continued to grow for fresh sanctions on Russia for its treatement of Navalny, with the German government indicating it was open to such a move.

Russia’s treatment of Navalny and his supporters has led to growing calls for Germany to halt its controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline with the country.

However, government spokesman Steffen Seibert reiterated that Germany was sticking to the nearly complete project, saying its position “has not changed.”

Following the verdict, Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said on Wednesday that he expected broad agreement within the European Union on the need for sanctions against Russia.

EU foreign affairs ministers are due to discuss the matter at their next meeting, set for Feb. 22.

There have been discussion within the European Union over fresh sanctions since last month.

Recent developments in Russia “confirm a continuous negative pattern of shrinking space for the opposition, civil society and independent voices,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who is to travel to Russia on Thursday, said in a statement on behalf of member states.