Top Navalny aide Ivan Zhdanov put on Russia’s federal wanted list

Ivan Zhdanov, a close ally of jailed opposition politician Alexey Navalny and the director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), has been put on a federal wanted list in Russia.

Zhdanov reported this himself on Instagram, after his personal details appeared in an Interior Ministry database of wanted persons. The entry doesn’t include specific charges against Zhdanov, but notes that he’s “wanted under an article of the criminal code.”

Ivan Zhdanov, who currently resides in Lithuania, is a suspect in a criminal case on the creation of an NGO that infringes on the liberties and rights of Russian citizens. The case first became known in April, though it was launched by the Russian Investigative Committee’s Main Investigative Department on February 4. The other suspects in the case are Alexey Navalny himself and his chief of staff, Leonid Volkov.

On June 9, the Moscow City Court outlawed Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation as an “extremist organization.”