Jailed Russian opposition leader Navalny wins top EU prize

FILE - In this handout photo taken from a footage provided by Moscow City Court in Feb. 2, 2021, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny shows the heart symbol from the cage, during a hearing at the City Court in Moscow, Russia. Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been awarded the European Union's top human rights prize, in a clear slap at President Vladimir Putin. In awarding the Sakharov Prize to Navalny, the European Parliament praised his "immense personal bravery." The 45-year-old activist was poisoned with a nerve agent last year and promptly arrested upon his return to Moscow from treatment in Germany and later imprisoned. (Moscow City Court via AP, File)
FILE - In this handout photo taken from a footage provided by Moscow City Court in Feb. 2, 2021, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny shows the heart symbol from the cage, during a hearing at the City Court in Moscow, Russia. Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been awarded the European Union's top human rights prize, in a clear slap at President Vladimir Putin. In awarding the Sakharov Prize to Navalny, the European Parliament praised his "immense personal bravery." The 45-year-old activist was poisoned with a nerve agent last year and promptly arrested upon his return to Moscow from treatment in Germany and later imprisoned. (Moscow City Court via AP, File)

BRUSSELS (AP) — Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who narrowly survived a poisoning he blames on the Kremlin, was awarded the European Union’s top human rights prize Wednesday in a clear slap at President Vladimir Putin.

In awarding the Sakharov Prize to Navalny, the European Parliament praised his “immense personal bravery.”

The 45-year-old activist fell ill from a nerve agent poisoning last year and recuperated in Germany, then was promptly arrested upon his return to Moscow and later imprisoned.

“He has campaigned consistently against the corruption of Vladimir Putin’s regime, and through his social media accounts and political campaigns, Navalny has helped expose abuses and mobilize the support of millions of people across Russia. For this, he was poisoned and thrown in jail,” parliament President David Sassoli said in a statement.

Sassoli called for the immediate release of Navalny, who is Putin’s biggest domestic foe.

There was no immediate reaction to the award from the Kremlin, which denies any involvement in Navalny’s poisoning.

Following his imprisonment, authorities unleashed a sweeping crackdown on his groups and associates. In June, a court outlawed Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption and a network of his regional offices as extremist organizations, a verdict that carries long prison terms for those associated with it. Several top allies have fled Russia, and courts have given suspended sentences and restricted travel to some others who remained.

An Interior Ministry wanted notice said Wednesday it is searching for Lyubov Sobol, a top Navalny associate who received a suspended sentence and faced travel restrictions. Her whereabouts are unknown, but Russian news reports suggested she has left the country.

The EU recognition of Navalny will further sour relations between the 27-nation bloc and Russia. These ties have been on the decline for years, especially following Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.

The impact reverberated beyond the EU as well.

Days after Russia suspended its mission at NATO and ordered the closure of the alliance’s office in Moscow in retaliation for NATO’s expulsion of Russian diplomats, the organization’s chief said he embraced the news.

“I welcome the fact that a strong voice … in Russia has been awarded this prize,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, adding the prize also was a call for “his unconditional release from prison” and to have an international investigation into it.

Stoltenberg recalled NATO considered the treatment of Navalny as part of a “pattern where we see that Russia has become more oppressive at home and more aggressive abroad.”

Russia’s treatment of Navalny has only exacerbated matters. The EU has called for his immediate and unconditional release in what it sees as a politically motivated imprisonment and has said it holds Moscow responsible for his health.

The EU imposed sanctions last year on six senior Russian officials for their alleged involvement in the poisoning of Navalny. Amid the standoff between Brussels and Moscow, the move by European lawmakers to award Navalny the prize has returned the issue to the heart of the political debate.

“It is an important signal, also to the Kremlin, that the EU will not give in to pressure and blackmail or be fooled by empty promises,” said Sergey Lagodinsky, a Greens/EFA MEP from Germany.

Navalny’s top associate Leonid Volkov said the prize showed hundreds of lawmakers from different countries and parties agree the fight against corruption is an issue for all of Europe and Navalny is “political prisoner No. 1 in the world and Putin’s personal captive.”

“Europe understands that we are fighting to make Russia a normal European country, which it will become, and supports it,” he said in a post on Facebook.

Ruslan Shaveddinov, another member of Navalny’s team, told the Associated Press “Russian authorities may want this to be forgotten as soon as possible, but we see that European politicians believe that this issue is important and send quite a clear message that no one forgot and that they demand Alexei Navalny’s release.”