Russian investigators raided opposition campaign offices across the country on Tuesday, in the latest move to increase pressure on top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and his allies.
The early morning raids targeted more than 100 of Navalny's campaign offices and homes of activists in 30 cities, the opposition said, including the headquarters of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation in Moscow. An AFP journalist saw several armed interior ministry officers in black balaclavas enter the business centre where the foundation's offices are located. Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner who has emerged as President Vladimir Putin's most prominent critic, denounced the raids as an attempt to intimidate the opposition after a summer of protests.
"This will not stop us," he said in a post on his blog shortly after the raids began. "We are doing the right thing. And those who are against us are enemies of Russia."
The Investigative Committee said Tuesday that the raids were part of an ongoing probe into money-laundering.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019
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