Russian court re-sentences father of top Navalny aide to three years in prison
A court in Russia’s Nenets Autonomous Okrug has overturned a three-year suspended sentence previously handed down to Yuri Zhdanov — the 67-year-old father of Alexey Navalny’s top aide Ivan Zhdanov — and replaced it with time in prison. This was reported by Zhdanov’s lawyer Vladimir Voronin on Thursday, February 17.
Zhdanov senior received the initial sentence in December 2021, after he was found guilty of fraud and forgery commited by an official. He was released in the courtroom only to be jailed 10 days later after being accused of breaching the terms of his probation. Both the defense and the prosecution appealed the initial verdict.
Yuri Zhdanov participated in Thursday’s hearing via a video link from a pre-trial detention center in Arkhangelsk.
Why the court decided to toughen Zhdanov’s sentences remains unclear. Lawyer Vladimir Voronin said the defense plans to challenge the ruling.
Yuri Zhdanov was remanded in custody in March 2021 on charges of abuse of office connected to his time as a local official in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug’s Istakteley township in the 1990s. The authorities brought more serious charges against him that May.
State investigators accused the former official of causing 2.5 million rubles ($32,800 by today’s exchange rate) in damages by recommending a family that was already receiving housing subsidies for social housing. Zhdanov pleaded not guilty.
Yuri Zhdanov’s defense lawyers believe the case against their client is linked to his son’s political activities. Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Alexey Navalny’s now-outlawed Anti-Corruption Foundation, also maintains that the case is fabricated and aimed at him. In his final statement in court on Thursday, Zhdanov senior said he would not “disown” his son, adding that “no one will silence him.”
In January, Russia’s financial watchdog added Ivan Zhdanov to its blacklist of “terrorists and extremists.” Zhdanov, who is wanted in Russian in connection with a number of criminal cases, left the country last year and currently resides abroad.