Lawyer Lyubov Sobol handed petty fine following arrest outside FSB operative’s home

Moscow’s Perovsky District Court has fined Lyubov Sobol, a lawyer for Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), 1,000 rubles (about $13) following her arrest near the home of Konstantin Kudryavtsev — one of the FSB operatives allegedly involved in poisoning Navalny.

The court found Sobol guilty of disobeying a police officer (under article 19.3 of the Administrative Code), Interfax reported on Wednesday, December 23, citing the court’s press service.

Sobol was arrested on Monday, December 21, shortly after she arrived at Kudryavtsev’s home. The head of her campaign headquarters, Konstantin Raspopov, was arrested along with her. Later that same day, Akim Kerimov and Olga Klyuchnikova — two employees who work for Navalny’s YouTube channel “Navalny Live” — were arrested near the Novokosino police station, where Sobol was being held.

Law enforcement officers wanted to interrogate Sobol in connection with a pre-investigation probe into a case of criminal infringement on the inviolability of the home, but she refused to testify. She was released from the police station without an indictment. Raspopov was fined 1,000 rubles, while Kerimov and Klyuchnikova were each sentenced to seven days in jail. They, like Sobol, were all charged with disobeying police officers.

According to the administrative protocol, the police left for the indicated address after being informed that “strangers were clamouring to the apartment.” An officer who arrived at the scene found Sobol in a rented car parked next to the house, he asked her to show her documents several times, but she refused.

On December 14, Bellingcat, The Insider, CNN, and Der Spiegel published an investigation implicating a special FSB sub-unit in poisoning Alexey Navalny with a Novichok-type nerve agent. Konstantin Kudryavtsev was among the operatives identified in the investigation.

On December 21, Alexey Navalny shared a video revealing that he had managed to fool Kudryavtsev into detailing the Kremlin’s poisoning operation. That same day, Lyubov Sobol went to Kudryavtsev’s home on the outskirts of Moscow and tried to talk to him, but he refused to interact with her. Police officers arrived at Kudryavtsev’s apartment building shortly after Sobol.