Alexey Navalny to remain on Russia’s list of terrorists and extremists almost a year after his death

Russian politician Yulia Navalnaya has failed in her bid to have her late husband Alexey Navalny removed from the country’s list of terrorists and extremists, she revealed on Friday.

Writing on Telegram, Navalnaya said that she had received a reply from Rosfinmonitoring, the federal agency charged with monitoring the financing of terrorism and money laundering, explaining why it had refused to remove Navalny from its list.

In a letter dated 16 December, it said that Navalny had been placed on the list for money-laundering and financing terrorism and that he would remain on the list until Rosfinmonitoring was notified that the criminal convictions against him had been overturned.

Navalny was added to the Rosfinmonitoring list in January 2022, after Russian courts had banned his Anti-Corruption Foundation for being “extremist” in 2021.

“Putin is still afraid of Alexey even after he killed him,” Navalnaya said, adding that, under Russian law, a person’s death was sufficient grounds for their removal from the list.

“What use is this to Putin?” Navalnaya asked. “Putin does this to scare you. He wants you to be afraid to even mention Alexey’s name, hoping that you will gradually forget it altogether. But no one will forget.”

Navalnaya said she would be challenging Rosfinmonitoring’s response.

Navalny was killed on 16 February, a little over two months after he was moved to the Polar Wolf prison in Russia’s Arctic far north, one of the most brutal detention centres in the country. Within days of his death, Navalnaya pledged to continue her husband’s work.