Navalny urges Russians from jail to overcome their fear

MOSCOW — In a note from jail, opposition leader Alexei Navalny urged Russians Thursday to overcome their fear and “free” the country from a “bunch of thieves,” while the Kremlin cast the arrests of thousands of protesters as a due response to the unsanctioned rallies.

Navalny, who was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison earlier this week, said in a statement posted on his Instagram account that “iron doors slammed behind my back with a deafening sound, but I feel like a free man. Because I feel confident I’m right. Thanks to your support. Thanks to my family’s support.”

Navalny, 44, an anti-corruption campaigner who is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most determined political foe, was arrested Jan. 17 upon returning from his five-month convalescence in Germany from a nerve agent poisoning, which he has blamed on the Kremlin. Russian authorities deny any involvement and claim they have no proof that he was poisoned despite tests by several European labs.

A Moscow court on Tuesday sent Navalny to prison, finding that he violated the terms of his probation while recuperating in Germany.

The sentence stems from a 2014 embezzlement conviction that Navalny has rejected as fabricated and the European Court of Human Rights has ruled unlawful.

He said his imprisonment was “Putin’s personal revenge” for surviving and exposing the assassination plot.

“But even more than that, it’s a message from Putin and his friends to the entire country: ‘Did you see what we can do? We spit on laws and steamroll anyone who dares to challenge us. We are the law.’”

Protests against Navalny’s arrest and jailing have spread across Russia’s 11 time zones over the past two weekends, drawing tens of thousands in the largest show of discontent with Putin’s rule in years.