Russian journalist sentenced to 12 years in prison for Navalny ties

A court in the city of Ufa, in Russia’s Volga region, has sentenced a journalist to 12 years in prison for cooperating with Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) and spreading “false information” about the Russian military, independent news outlet Mediazona reported from the courtroom on Tuesday.

Olga Komleva, 46, worked for Russian independent news outlet RusNews. She was detained in March 2024 for her links to the FBK, which was declared an “extremist organisation” for its investigations of corruption in Russia, and has been in custody ever since.

Komleva’s trial was held behind closed doors and not all details of the charges are known.

Komleva’s involvement with the FBK dates from 2017, when it opened an office in Ufa, the capital of the republic of Bashkortostan, and her ties to the organisation served as grounds for her persecution by the state even before the FBK was deemed “extremist”.

Law enforcement officers first searched her apartment in 2019, seizing her laptop and hard drive. It was then searched again in 2021 after Lilia Chanysheva, Navalny’s former chief of staff, was arrested in Ufa.

Komleva was then repeatedly detained and fined for participating in anti-government and anti-war protests, and has been fined a total of over 6 million rubles (€55,000). In July 2024, prosecutors brought new charges against Komleva for disseminating “false information” about the Russian military.

During her time in prison, Komleva has written widely about prison life, often accompanying her accounts with drawings, and always signing off by writing “Olga Komleva, deemed an extremist”.