Marina-Viktoria from Murmansk is jailed 3 times for holding a photo of Aleksei Navalny

On the 13th of March, Marina-Viktoria Nagornykh was arrested for seven days after she stood in downtown Murmansk with a photo of Navalny. It is the third time in only a month that the 24 year old woman is put behind bars for her support to the killed opposition leader.

Nagornykh is accused of extremism. According to a city court in Murmansk, the photo of Aleksei Navalny must be considered ‘extremist material.’

Nagornykh is now kept in a freezing cold cell and she is reportedly experiencing health problems.

The first detention of the woman took place on the 16th of February, the day of the death of Navalny. Marina-Viktoria then stood in the central city square with a poster that read: “Aleksei Navalny is killed. His blood is on your hands, Vova.”

The detention was followed by a warning from the local police. But Nagornykh did not stop.

The one-person demonstration on the Five-corner Square downtown Murmansk was held on the day of Navalny’s death and was soon stopped by the police. Photo via Arctic Observer

“I decided that it was not sufficient and therefore once every few days started to make small memorials by the former local office of the Navalny team,” she told the Russian version of the Barents Observer.

Later, she together with a group of friends agreed to gather at the local public Memorial of Political Repression to lay down flowers. But the police was prepared and detained her before she even made it to the site of the memorial.

Since then, she has been detained and arrested three time for holding photos of Navalny in downtown Murmansk. Each time she has gotten seven days behind bars.

Aleksei Navalny for several years had a regional office in Murmansk. It opened in 2017 and was headed by Violetta Grudina. It was forced to close in 2021 as the Russian General Prosecutor officially filed an extremism case against Navalny’s organisations, among them the Anti-Corruption Fund.

“The darkest of times for free thinking people and civil society in Russia is coming. Actually, the Kremlin has just demanded that everyone that does not consent are to be declared extremist,” Aleksei Navalny said in a comment.

Three years later, the opposition leader was killed in the far northern prison in Kharp.