police in russia have been conducting
searches at several moscow addresses
connected to russian opposition leader
alexei
navalny
officers attempted to break down the
door of his wife's apartment they also
searched mr navalny's home the offices
of his anti-corruption fund
and his team's youtube studio the rates
come
after his team held mass protests in
cities across
russia on sunday calling for the
opposition politicians
release from prison
let's go straight to emily sherwin in
moscow welcome
emily tell us more about these raids
well we've seen really a flurry of these
raids across moscow uh this evening
almost simultaneously including
at the apartment that uh alexey
navalny's wife is at juliana
we heard from the scene from our
colleagues who are there at the moment
that the uh her lawyer has said that
she's not being
let into the apartment to see julia
navalny
the head of alexey navalny's
anti-corruption fund has said
that at least one of the people in the
team
has been arrested as well
and he also said that the police
apparently say that these searches are
part of a criminal investigation into
calls to hold a protest
during the pandemic referring of course
back to those protests that happened
last weekend but looking at it from a
distance
it does feel a bit like a crackdown
against uh the allies of alexey navalny
because of course mr navalny is in
prison
and uh they um the demonstrations were
broken up
by police so this is this is what this
is the russian state flexing its muscles
well some critics certainly might say
that we have seen
after previous big protests as well
police and authorities opening criminal
investigations against protesters and
that's what we've been seeing
this week as well the authorities have
opened several
around 20 criminal cases so far against
protesters
including for police violence for
calling
for unauthorized as they say protests
for blocking
traffic so it could be uh part of that
that we're seeing at the moment but
it's also worth pointing out that these
searches come
almost at the same time as
me as journalists from bellingcat and
the insider and other
media outlets published a new
investigation
looking into what they say is
are the same people who may have
published
um excuse me poisoned alexey navalny
they say that those fsb agents that they
say were involved in that poisoning
may have um also uh poisoned
at least three other public figures
since 2014
so the timing of this is is rather
strange i would say emily sherwin in
moscow thank you
you