NAVALNY’S TEAM TO USE GUERRILLA TACTICS IN MOUNTING PROTESTS

The team of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who is incarcerated in a prison camp, no longer wants to announce protests in advance, resorting instead to guerrilla tactics in mounting rallies and marches.

The protests should only take place spontaneously, Leonid Volkov, who is close to Navalny, wrote on several social networks on Thursday. He referred to the more than 1,700 arrests during the protests in Russia in April alone. These were called for days in advance, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) reported.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown a desire to increase the level of repression targeting organizers and participants, said Volkov, who lives abroad. Russian authorities have been cracking down on Navalny's team for months.

Currently, a Moscow court is deciding on a request by the prosecutor's office to classify various organizations of the leading opposition figure as extremist.

Navalny's regional political staff have already been put on the list of extremist and terrorist organizations. Navalny's associates criticize the proceedings as politically motivated.

There had already been protests across the country in January with thousands of arrests.

The reasons for the protests have not disappeared, Volkov wrote, referring to corruption, economic stagnation and Putin's fourth term as president.

Navalny has already been imprisoned for 115 days.

His lawyers now want to take legal action against the prison system because they are no longer allowed to bring mobile phones and laptops to meetings with the 44-year-old in the prison camp, as lawyer Vadim Kobzev told the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which is critical of the Kremlin.

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