7,523 people were convicted of being violent against law enforcement officers (including the country’s police and national guard) in 2021. It is the highest annual rate since 2017, and surpasses the 2020 rate by 16.4%, according to RBK.
Most of the convicted (6910) were found guilty of non-life-threatening violence, however, 613 were believed to have been ‘extremely violent’.
The number of people convicted under this article has been declining between 2017 and 2021, say researchers.
Other articles to show a rise in the number of convicted are ‘justification of nazism’ (3,5 times the 2017 rate) and ‘high treason’ (6 people compared to 14), ‘divulgence of official secrets’ (43/54 cases), ‘involvement in an extremist community’ (4/13 cases) and ‘calling for dismantlement of the Russian statehood using media’ (135/242 cases).
National Guard of Russia. Photo: State Duma
23 and 31 January, as well as 2 February and 21 April 2021 marked countrywide rallies in support of Alexey Navalny. Thousands of people were detained, hundreds were put under administrative arrest, and more than a hundred people faced criminal prosecution.
Alexey Navalny is now serving his sentence in the Pokrov Penitentiary in Vladimir Oblast. His suspended sentence was replaced by jail time in February 2021 by Moscow’s Simonovsky court. The Federal Penal Correction Service accused Navalny of breaching the conditions of his suspended sentence for ‘not reporting to a police station in person’ while he was receiving his medical treatment in Germany after being poisoned by a Novichok nerve agent.
On 9 June 2021 the Moscow City court declared Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation ‘an extremist organisation’ and prohibited it to conduct any activities. The court session was a closed one.
