One more crosshair. Moscow seeks to outlaw Navalny’s foundation as a “terrorist organisation”, escalating previous “extremist” ban

An official notice from Russia’s Supreme Court, published by Navalny aide Leonid Volkov, confirms it has received an “administrative lawsuit… to recognise the American non-profit corporation Anti-Corruption Foundation, Inc… as a terrorist organisation and to ban its activities on the territory of the Russian Federation”. The document sets a “closed court hearing” for November 27.

“There is no doubt: on November 27, we will be declared terrorists”, Volkov wrote on Telegram, wryly calling it “a new badge for the collection”. “FBK will become the first organization to have collected the entire iconostasis of Putin’s ‘awards’: foreign agents, undesirables, extremists, terrorists.”

The “terrorist” label is the most severe designation in the Russian legal system and would place Navalny’s associates on the same legal footing as groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda.

In a comment to the independent news outlet Meduza, Volkov explained that the US-based legal entity was a practical necessity for fundraising. “In the American jurisdiction, it is easier to collect donations, because people there can write them off their taxes and so on”, he said.

Despite the threats, Volkov insisted their work would continue.