Court sentences Navalny to prison

MOSCOW — A Moscow court on Tuesday ordered Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to prison for more than 2½ years, finding that he violated the terms of his probation while recuperating in Germany from nerve-agent poisoning. The ruling ignited protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Navalny, who is the most prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin, had denounced the proceedings as a vain attempt by the Kremlin to scare millions of Russians into submission.

After the verdict that was announced about 8 p.m., protesters converged on areas of central Moscow and gathered on St. Petersburg’s main avenue, Nevsky Prospekt.

Helmeted riot police grabbed demonstrators without obvious provocation and put them in police vehicles. The Meduza website showed video of police roughly pulling a passenger and driver out of a taxi.

The ruling came despite massive protests across Russia over the past two weekends and Western calls to free the 44-year-old anti-corruption campaigner.

“We reiterate our call for the Russian government to immediately and unconditionally release Mr. Navalny, as well as the hundreds of other Russian citizens wrongfully detained in recent weeks for exercising their rights, including the rights to freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after the ruling.

The protests lasted until about 1 a.m. About 650 people were arrested, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political arrests.

The prison sentence stems from a 2014 embezzlement conviction that Navalny has rejected as politically motivated.