Moscow (TIP): Russian authorities have added imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny and some of his top allies to the registry of terrorists and extremists, the latest move in a multi-pronged crackdown on opposition supporters, independent media and human rights activists. Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic, and eight of his allies — including top aides LyubovSobol and GeorgyAlburov — were on January 25 added to the registry by Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service. The law requires that the bank accounts of those on the list be frozen. The move comes just a over a year after Navalny’s arrest, which triggered a wave of the biggest mass protests across the country in years. The politician was detained upon his return from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin.

Navalny was ordered to serve 2 1/2 years in prison for violating the terms of a suspended sentence stemming from a fraud conviction. — Agencies