Russia Rejects Western Criticism Over Navalny’s Prison Term

In this handout photo taken from a footage provided by Moscow City Court, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny shows a heart symbol standing in the cage during a hearing to a motion from the Russian prison service to convert the suspended sentence of Navalny from the 2014 criminal conviction into a real prison term in the Moscow City Court in Moscow, Russia, on Feb. 2, 2021. Moscow City Court via AP

MOSCOW—Russian authorities on Wednesday shrugged off the massive rallies against the jailing of top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and rejected Western criticism as “hysterics” as activists reported more than 1,400 new arrests in the crackdown on protesters.

A Moscow court on Tuesday ordered Navalny to prison for two years and eight months, finding that he violated the terms of his probation while recuperating in Germany from a nerve-agent poisoning. The ruling immediately ignited new protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg that followed massive rallies over the past two weekends.