A left-wing critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Sergei Udaltsov, was sentenced to six years in a penal colony and convicted of justifying terrorism by a Moscow court on Thursday.
The sentence fell one year short of the seven years sought by the public prosecutor’s office. Shortly before the verdict, Udaltsov declared he would begin an “indefinite hunger strike until death” if convicted.
After the judgment, he was quoted as saying by the opposition media outlet Meduza: “A shameful decision. All those who made it will be held accountable, I hope. Be damned, you dogs. I wish this for you with all my heart.”
Udaltsov, whose wife Anastasia serves in the Russian State Duma for the Communist Party, supports Russia’s war against Ukraine but is considered a Putin critic.
According to Meduza, Udaltsov’s prosecution stems from his article “How Marxists Were Turned Into Terrorists.”
In it, he voiced support for another group of Russian activists accused of forming a terrorist organization by the domestic intelligence service FSB.
The activists were sentenced earlier this month by a military court to prison terms between 16 and 22 years.
Udaltsov was a prominent leader of Russia’s protest movement from 2011 to 2013, which opposed Putin’s return to the presidency.
In 2014, Udaltsov was sentenced to four and a half years in prison on charges related to his role in organizing demonstrations against Putin, which turned into mass unrest. He was released in 2017.
The premier of the eastern German state of Saxony is calling for energy to be sourced from Russia again after the end of the war in Ukraine.
“It must be in our interest to resume energy supplies from Russia after a ceasefire,” Michael Kretschmer told the Funke media group on Saturday.
“Russia must be a trading partner again in the future – without us becoming dependent on it again.” Good economic relations also increase Germany’s security, he said.
Kretschmer, who is from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has repeatedly spoken out in favour of resuming Russian gas supplies when the war eventually ends. He has been criticized for this even from within the ranks of his own party.
The European Union has imposed wide-ranging sanctions on Moscow over the war in Ukraine, now into its fourth winter.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has characterized the measures as economic warfare. He has repeatedly pointed out that Europe in particular is suffering as a result.
Kretschmer said Germany “must also consider the sanctions against Russia from our own economic perspective.” German energy policy is leading to deindustrialization, he argued.
Asked whether he felt threatened by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kretschmer replied that “Russia has attacked another country. Therefore, we must position ourselves to defend ourselves.”
This can only be achieved if Germany is economically strong, he said.
Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico plans to hold meetings with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week, he said in a video message on Monday.
He said he intends to meet Putin in Beijing on Tuesday evening during a trip to China, before meeting Zelensky in eastern Slovakia on Friday.
Fico is travelling to China to attend commemorative events marking the anniversary of World War II, including a military parade on Wednesday.
On Thursday, Fico said he will be received by Chinese President Xi Jinping, adding that his EU partners have been informed of his trip.
Fico wants to serve as a peacemaker between Ukraine and Russia, but has failed so far, with Zelensky and leading EU politicians accusing him of being too friendly towards Russia.
Slovakia and Ukraine are also still engaged in a dispute over Kiev’s obstruction of the transit of Russian gas and oil to Slovakia, which is more dependent on Russian energy than almost any other EU country.
Ukraine says it wants to curtail funding for Moscow’s war by blocking the transit of Russian energy.
In his video message, published on Facebook, Fico expressed regret that no other EU leader was attending the Chinese celebrations, calling it a missed opportunity.
“Heads of state representing billions of people will be present there,” he said.
“A new world order is emerging, new rules for a multipolar world, a new balance of power that is extremely important for global stability,” he added.
For the first time in his more than 20-year rule, President Vladimir Putin’s power appeared to hang in the balance this weekend.
And even though the rebellious Russian mercenary forces who descended on Moscow have turned back, Putin will struggle to project the image of a man in total control that he once did. That could set the stage for further challenges to his rule at home and could weaken Russia’s hand in the war in Ukraine.
With spectacular ease and a stated aim of ousting Russia’s defense minister, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner troops swept into Rostov-on-Don, a city of 1.1 million people, and seized the military headquarters there. They then continued hundreds of kilometers (miles) north on a lightning march toward the capital without meeting any serious resistance.
Some were even cheered — a sign that Prigozhin’s positioning of himself as an enemy of a corrupt and incompetent elite resonated and a detail that will not be lost on those surrounding Putin in the coming days.
“This whole episode has sowed really profound anxiety across Russia’s elites,” said Nigel Gould-Davies, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the Institute for Strategic Studies. The actions of the Russian leader’s one-time protégé “severely shake confidence in Putin among those around him who matter.”
For several tense hours, the Kremlin seemed powerless as Wagner convoys rolled through Russia, smashing occasional roadblocks and shooting down aircraft sent by the military in a desperate attempt to stop them.
With the bulk of Russian forces tied up in the fighting in Ukraine, authorities rushed a motley collection of troops and police to protect Moscow, dug up roads and even blew up bridges to slow down the onslaught.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and General Staff chief Gen. Valery Gerasimov vanished from public view on that decisive day, amplifying the sense of weakness and lack of control.
In a televised address to the nation broadcast early Saturday, a somber-looking Putin accused Prigozhin of betrayal and compared the situation to the collapse of the Russian empire in 1917.
But hours later, the Russian leader granted Prigozhin amnesty — on condition that he goes into exile in Belarus.
TV Appeal of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin to the citizens of Russia, personnel of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and law enforcement officers in connection with the situation with PMC Wagner as shown on TV.
Artem Priakhin/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
While the Kremlin tried to cast the deal as a wise move that helped avoid a looming bloodbath, it was a remarkable compromise for a man who has relentlessly suppressed any sign of dissent and sometimes violently silenced foes daring to criticize him.
The quick pardon for Prigozhin stood in contrast to the Kremlin’s methodical crackdown on dissidents and critics of the war in Ukraine, who have faced prosecution, forced exile or even violent deaths. For many in Putin’s Russia, his handling of the revolt was a sign of unforgivable weakness.
“Prigozhin demonstrated that it’s possible to capture a city of a million people with impunity, put demands to the country’s leadership, refuse to obey its orders and mount military marches on Moscow while killing Russian soldiers on the way,” said Viktor Alksnis, a retired Soviet air force colonel and current hardliner who expresses views shared by many Russian hawks, who have been increasingly critical of Putin’s rule and his handling of the war in Ukraine. “Russia has moved a step closer to its final and irreparable collapse.”
The blow to Putin comes on top of repeated Russian failures in his 16-month war in Ukraine.
Gould-Davies noted that the mutiny has destabilized the military and badly hurt troop morale, opening new opportunities to Ukraine, now in the initial stages of its counteroffensive.
“This is Russians killing Russians on Russian territory while Russia is trying to contain a Ukrainian counteroffensive,” Gould-Davies observed. “This is not what Russia wants in wartime.”
While the deal with Prigozhin could bring some Wagner troops under the control of the Defense Ministry — a demand that the mercenary leader had previously rejected, precipitating the conflict — it’s a small compensation for the huge damage to the government authority that the crisis has inflicted.
Kirill Rogov, a political analyst who has long studied Putin’s politics, observed that the problem was of the Russian president’s own making: He tolerated Prigozhin’s feud with the top military leaders as part of his strategy to shift blame for the military blunders in Ukraine and play members of the elite against one another in an apparent belief that he could fully control Prigozhin.
“Golem’s creator always thinks that he can be stopped and he makes him look increasingly convincing in order to scare others,” Rogov wrote in a commentary, referring to a clay creature brought to life in Jewish folklore.
Putin did stop Prigozhin in the end — but at a steep price.
Associated Press writer Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.
