Yulia NAVALNAYA and Leonid VOLKOV, Chief of Staff for Alexey Navalny and Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Foundation are invited to the European Parliament, in Brussels. They attend the screening of the award-winning CNN documentary “Navalny”, directed by Daniel Roher. Following the screening, a debate metween Navalny's representatives and the audience takes place. Statement by Leonid VOLKOV and extracts from the event.

Brussels

visit

HAUTALA, Heidi (Greens/EFA, FI)

NAVALNY, Alexei (RU)

Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought 2021 (T)

VOLKOV, Leonid

Sakharov Community event in the presence of Yulia NAVALNAYA and Leonid VOLKOV, Chief of Staff for Alexey Navalny and Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Foundation to the European Parliament: statement by Leonid VOLKOV and extracts from the event

Sakharov Community event in the presence of Yulia NAVALNAYA and Leonid VOLKOV, Chief of Staff for Alexey Navalny and Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Foundation to the European Parliament: statement by Leonid VOLKOV and extracts from the event (I-230492)

SOUNDBITE (English), Leonid VOLKOV, Chief of staff for Alexei NAVALNY and Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, Mister Navalny is now officially the one and only prisoner in Russia who has been stripped of client-attorney privilege. Officially, the constitutional plan, the attorney priviledge, has been raised for him. He is not allowed to communicate with his lawyers. He is not allowed to exchange any documents. He is very much restricted in his ability to have contacts with the outer world.

SOUNDBITE (English), Leonid VOLKOV, Chief of staff for Alexei NAVALNY and Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, Actually, the situation is quite terrible and when it started, at the end of August, when they started to make his conditions unbearable, we were asking ourselves like, why now? What happened? And now we have the answer. So apparently, Putin was getting ready for his realisation to the next level of escalations of war, and he wanted to make sure that Navalny will not be able to coordinate the protest out of his prison cell. So even in the prison cell, Putin considers him to be very dangerous.

SOUNDBITE (English), Leonid VOLKOV, Chief of staff for Alexei NAVALNY and Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, We support every Russian who protests in every possible way. There are those extremely brave people who take up to the street protests, despite the enormous risks they are facing.

SOUNDBITE (English), Leonid VOLKOV, Chief of staff for Alexei NAVALNY and Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, The Russians are resisting and we believe this resistance will grow and we do all, everything possible. We, as a leading political force of the Russian opposition, as the Anti-Corruption Foundation, we do everything possible to endorse, to amplify, to increase this resistance.

SOUNDBITE (English), Leonid VOLKOV, Chief of staff for Alexei NAVALNY and Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, Now, our activities goes far beyond anti-corruption investigation. Since the very first day of the war, since February 24th, we have launched a huge media operation which aims to explain to our fellow Russian compatriots what's actually going on, to counter the propaganda narratives, to tell the truth about the war.

SOUNDBITE (English), Leonid VOLKOV, Chief of staff for Alexei NAVALNY and Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, We believe that this focus of international attention is something that could help to improve his condition, or at least to keep him alive.

SOUNDBITE (English), Leonid VOLKOV, Chief of staff for Alexei NAVALNY and Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, We are about to launch a major international Free Navalny campaign, probably next week or in two weeks will make another announcement on this. And, well, this visit today is kind of like a part of preparation to this.

Arrival of Leonid VOLKOV, Yulia NAVALNAYA and Heidi HAUTALA (Greens/EFA, FI), Vice-President of the EP (6 shots)