Navalny loses appeal over his detention

Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, lost another court fight to protest his prison conditions.

A judge in the city of Kovrov on Thursday dismissed Navalny’s protest against his confinement in a punishment cell, at least the second time it has rejected such a complaint from the dissident.

Navalny is serving a nineyear sentence in a maximumsecurity prison about 155 miles east of Moscow. He calls the fraud and contempt of court charges politically motivated.

Navalny, 46, was arrested in January 2021 upon returning from Germany, where he had been recuperating from nerveagent poisoning he blames on the Kremlin.