An anti-Putin demonstration in Berlin, Germany, 1 March 2025. Photo: EPA/HANNIBAL HANSCHKE

Criminal cases have been opened against three high-profile Russian opposition figures in exile on charges of involvement with a terrorist organisation, calling for extremism, organising an extremist community and involvement in said extremist community’s activities, Russian State Duma Deputy Vasily Piskaryov announced on Saturday.

Though Piskaryov, from the ruling United Russia party, did not mention names in his post, the charges relate to Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of slain opposition leader Alexey Navalny, and Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza, both of whom were exchanged in the largest ever prisoner swap between Russia and the West in August 2024.

Referring to a Berlin demonstration on 1 March organised by the trio, Piskaryov said that an “anti-Russian action” had taken place involving “foreign agents and militants” that had been “organised with the assistance of the German authorities and secret services”, while participants had “called for a violent change of power, … weapons deliveries to the Armed Forces of Ukraine and demonstratively burned Russian flags”, he continued.

A State Duma commission which investigates foreign interference in Russia affairs had therefore asked the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office “to take retaliatory measures against the Russian organisers of and participants in the Berlin gathering”, Piskaryov said.

The Russia Against Putin demonstration organised by Yashin, Kara-Murza and Navalnaya was timed to mark three tragic dates in the month of February — the tenth anniversary of the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, the anniversary of Navalny’s death in prison and the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Reacting to news of the charges on Monday, Yashin wrote that the only real terrorist in this case was Vladimir Putin, adding that it was “the duty of any true Russian patriot to rid the country of his junta”.