Navalny’s team to limit calls for protests

The team of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who is imprisoned in a prison camp, no longer wants to announce protests in advance. The protests should only take place spontaneously, Leonid Volkov, who is close to Navalny, wrote on several social networks on Thursday.

He referred to the more than 1,700 arrests during the protests in Russia in April alone.

These were called for days in advance. Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown a desire to increase the level of repression targeting organizers and participants, said Volkov, who lives abroad.

Russian authorities have been cracking down on Navalny’s team for months. Currently, a Moscow court is deciding on a request by the prosecutor’s office to classify various organizations of the leading opposition figure as extremist.

Navalny’s regional political staff have already been put on the list of extremist and terrorist organizations.