Locking Alexei Navalny away for 30 years wasn’t enough; forcing his team into exile wasn’t enough; even sending him to Siberia to further isolate and punish him wasn’t enough. Now some of his regional team leaders have also been imprisoned on charges of committing “extremist” or “terrorist” acts . . . simply because they are politically opposed to Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship. They haven’t tried to kill him, or anyone else; they haven’t tried to forcibly overthrow the government; they haven’t been building bombs in their basements. Their power resides in their words; and Putin is all too familiar with that power and its potential threat to his totalitarian regime.

Since so many of Navalny’s supporters have fled the country to continue their work from the relative safety of other European nations, Putin is now extending his grasp to the far reaches of Russia’s vast territory.

This summer, Lilia Chanysheva, Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation leader in the central Bashkortostan Republic, was sentenced to 7-1/2 years in prison.

Vadim Ostanin, the head of Navalny’s office in Barnaul, has been handed a sentence of nine years.

And now — since it truly is never enough — Ksenia Fadeyeva, who has headed the Foundation’s office in the Siberian city of Tomsk, has also received a nine-year sentence, again for alleged acts of “extremism” — a term that can mean whatever the court says it means.

Her attorney, Semyon Vodnev, said in a video posted by SOTA Media, that the defense had been “bullied.” “What happened in this trial has nothing to do with justice,” he said. Calling the verdict “illegal, baseless and unfair,” he stated that he had to refrain from speaking his mind, or otherwise “I will probably find myself on the same bench as Ksenia.” [AFP, Dec. 29, 2023.] He indicated that her sentence will be appealed — for all the good it will likely do.

In the meantime, it is not clear where Ms. Fadeyeva will be incarcerated; but since she is already located in the Siberian city of Tomsk — somewhere between Novosibirsk and the outer fringes of Hell — one thing is certain: it won’t be a picnic.

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So now we add these three brave souls to our growing list of HOSTAGES being held in Russian prisons for having done nothing more than speak the truth about the Putin regime. They are not prisoners who have committed violent, or even white-collar, crimes. They are men and women of conscience: HOSTAGES to Putin’s mad, narcissistic, unconscionable lust for lifelong power, and his paranoid obsession with an upcoming election whose outcome is pre-ordained.

They must not be abandoned to the fate he has chosen for them.

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Please . . . bring them home!

Brendochka
12/30/23