Russia opens criminal case against father of former Navalny aide

Russia has opened a criminal case against the 69-year-old father of Leonid Volkov, a former aide to late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, state news agency TASS reported on Thursday.

TASS quoted a security source as saying that Mikhail Volkov, a renowned mathematics professor, was suspected of transferring money to Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, which is banned in Russia as an extremist organisation.

Earlier, his home in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg was searched by officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB.

Leonid Volkov, who lives abroad and is also listed by Russia as a foreign agent and extremist, called the search operation an act of revenge against him for his opposition activities.

In a post on X, the younger Volkov said he was grateful to have received hundreds of messages of support, but angry that some people had called him a fool for not getting his parents out of the country.

He said his father's life had been rooted in his academic work in Russia and that he had until recently been looking after his 99-year-old mother, who died in January.

Leonid Volkov was a senior aide to Navalny, whose sudden death in an Arctic penal colony on February 16 last year deprived the Russian opposition of its most charismatic and popular figure.

No single leader has emerged to unite the disparate opposition and there has been significant infighting between different Russian dissident groups abroad.

The Kremlin casts Navalny's allies as dangerous extremists intent on destabilising Russia at the behest of Western intelligence agencies. It says President Vladimir Putin enjoys overwhelming support among ordinary Russians.

Navalny had described Putin's Russia as a brittle criminal state run by thieves, sycophants and spies who care only about money. He had long predicted that Russia could face seismic political turmoil, including revolution.