PUTIN SAYS FOREIGN POWERS AIM TO WEAKEN HIS COUNTRY

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his nation’s top counterintelligence agency Wednesday to redouble its efforts to address what he described as Western attempts to destabilize Russia.

Speaking at a meeting of top officials of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main KGB successor agency, Putin pointed at the “socalled policy of containment of Russia,” charging that it includes efforts to “derail our development, slow it down, create problems alongside our borders, provoke internal instability and undermine the values that unite the Russian society.”

The Russian president added that those activities by foreign powers, which he didn’t name, are aimed at “weakening Russia and putting it under outside control.”

The United States and its NATO allies have rejected similar previous claims by the Kremlin that they were seeking to undermine Russia.

Russia’s relations with the West plummeted to postCold War lows following Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The recent arrest of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and a sweeping crackdown on protesters demanding his release has been another source of tension.

Navalny, Putin’s most prominent critic, was arrested on Jan. 17 upon returning from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have rejected the accusation and accused Navalny of cooperating with Western intelligence agencies — claims which he has ridiculed.

Earlier this month, Navalny was sentenced to 2 1⁄2 years in prison for violating terms of his probation while convalescing in Germany. The sentence stems from a 2014 embezzlement conviction that Navalny has rejected as fabricated and the European Court of Human Rights has ruled to be unlawful.

Navalny’s arrest has fueled a wave of protests that drew tens of thousands to the streets across Russia. The authorities have detained about 11,000 people, many of whom were fined or given jail terms ranging from seven to 15 days.

In the wake of the demonstrations, the Kremlin-controlled parliament has toughened the punishment for disobeying police and introduced new fines for funding demonstrations. Putin on Wednesday signed those new bills into law.

Without naming Navalny, Putin assailed those in Russia who allegedly serve foreign interests.

“It’s necessary to draw a line between natural political competition, competition between political parties, ideological platforms, various views on the country’s development, and the activities that have nothing to do with democracy and are aimed at undermining stability and security of our state, at serving foreign interests,” he said.