On Friday, Russia opened a criminal case against Lyubov Sobol, ally of the Russian dissident Navalny, accusing her of trying to approach an alleged secret agent who according to Navalny was part of a plot to kill him. Navalny supporters claim that Sobol rang the bell of the alleged FSB agent.

The detention was triggered after the accusations launched by Navalny who had declared that the agent had taken part in a plot to poison him with a nerve agent last August.

According to Navalny, Sobol's arrest represents yet another repression adopted by Putin against opponents of the Kremlin before next year's parliamentary elections.

Police picked up Sobol for questioning last Friday accusing her of repeatedly attempting to break into an elderly woman's apartment in eastern Moscow, wearing the uniforms used by consumer health safety.

According to the indictment, Sobol deceived a delivery courier with intent to enter an apartment building and then forcibly broke into the woman's apartment when she opened the door, a crime that involves two years in prison.

Navalny, who is in Germany where he was treated after crashing on a plane in Russia, condemned the action. The protests of the Russian dissident are echoed by the positions of Germany and other Western nations who claim that Navalny was poisoned with a Soviet-style Novichok nerve agent with the intent to kill him. These accusations are systematically denied by the Kremlin which has declared extraneousness to the fact.

Russia opens criminal case against Lyubov Sobol

| EVIDENCE 1, MONDO |