Moscow court says the Navalny campaign must return money to donors who thought he is legally allowed to run for president

Moscow’s Savelovsky District Court has ordered Alexey Navalny’s presidential campaign to return 50,000 rubles ($850) to Mikhail Kostenko, a man living in Karelia who donated money.

In his lawsuit, Kostenko says he sent the money to Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s campaign manager, on August 31, before learning that Navalny “is a criminal with two felony convictions” and cannot technically run for president. According to Kostenko, this means Navalny’s campaign is collecting money “illegally for something that’s prohibited by law.”

In court, Leonid Volkov’s lawyer produced documents showing that the Navalny campaign has already returned Kostenko’s donation.

Also appearing in court was anti-Navalny activist Ilya Remeslo, who’s vowed to bring fraud charges against the campaign, given the federal laws prohibiting Navalny’s presidential candidacy.

Anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny launched his presidential campaign in December 2016. In May 2017, he was convicted of felony embezzlement in a retrial of a case overturned by Russia’s Supreme Court, following a ruling by the European Human Rights Court that Navalny’s right to a fair trial had been violated. Restrictions on convicted felons mean that Navalny won’t be allowed to run for elected office until 2028. Navalny says the federal law imposing these restrictions is unconstitutional, but Russia’s Constitutional Court has upheld the law.