The European Union criticized the new sentence against Navalny

The EU Foreign Service issued a statement in which it called the verdict on Alexei Navalny in the second Kirovles trial "an attempt to silence another independent political voice in Russia."

The statement also said that Navalny's sentence "virtually removes him from the political arena" and "raises serious questions about the fairness of the democratic process in Russia."

• On February 8, in the Leninsky District Court of Kirov, the review of the case on the embezzlement of Kirovles funds was completed, in which politician Alexei Navalny and businessman Pyotr Ofitserov were accused. The court sentenced them to five and four years' imprisonment, respectively, and fines.
• The Russian Supreme Court sent the Kirovles case back for retrial in 2016 after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Navalny and Ofitserov were denied a fair trial in the first trial.