The employees of the Main Investigative Department were left without haloperidol, and now in the corridors of the Investigative Committee there lives not only a vampire desman, but also a pink elephant" - with such jokes Alexey Navalny reports in his blog about the appearance of new criminal cases in which he appears. There are already five of these cases - about the embezzlement of the property of "Kirovles", about the theft of money from the Union of Right Forces, about the theft and laundering of money from "Yves Rocher", about abuse of power during the privatization of the Urzhum distillery and about mass riots and the use of violence against government officials on Bolotnaya Square on May 6. Yes, I also destroyed the chapel!

But jokes are jokes, and the cases are being prepared in their own way – interrogations alternate with searches. And not only of Navalny’s relatives. “An acquaintance from Yves Rocher called me back in November and said that the FSB had come to them. They confiscated documents, started dragging managers in for interrogations – everyone who had signed contracts with us. And they always asked everyone: “Are you personally acquainted with Alexey Navalny? Did you participate in the rallies on Bolotnaya?” – Alexey’s brother Oleg Navalny told The New Times. There is already a verdict in the Kirovles case – yesterday Navalny’s accomplice, who made a deal with the investigation, received a suspended sentence (a preclusion for the next, main court was created).

There is no point in discussing these cases on their merits – it’s like arguing whether the poet Joseph Brodsky, arrested and exiled for parasitism, was a parasite. Navalny is being prosecuted not because he violated something, but because he challenged Vladimir Putin. Criminal cases are the language the government uses to talk to the people now. To one part, it seems to be saying: don’t put on airs there, and better yet, leave here, otherwise we’ll put you in jail. And to the other: there’s no one to talk to – there are only agents and thieves.

What will all this lead to? The system that carries out orders has no reverse gear. When it comes to real thieves, the issue can theoretically be quietly resolved for money, but politics is not the case here. The expectation that Navalny will get scared and run away does not work. So sooner or later, some cases will reach the court and there will be a political trial. And I'm afraid there will be an arrest, because an enemy of Putin who has been put on trial cannot remain free - it's some kind of oxymoron. Continuing the analogy with Brodsky, we can recall the words of Anna Akhmatova: "What a biography they are making for our red-haired man!" I wish Navalny courage and that all this happens as late as possible.

Maxim Solyus: Criminal cases are the language of power