Moscow: On Tuesday, a Moscow court sentenced four journalists associated with the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny to five years and six months in a general-regime penal colony. The ruling marks a fresh escalation in the Kremlin's ongoing crackdown on dissent and independent media.

The journalists — Antonina Kravtsova (also known as Antonina Favorskaya), Konstantin Gabov, Sergei Karelin, and Artem Kriger — were convicted of “participating in an extremist group,” a charge widely believed to be politically motivated. All had reported on Navalny’s trials or contributed media content for platforms affiliated with him.

The closed-door trial was held at Moscow’s Nagatinsky district court, with only the sentencing open to the press. Around 100 supporters, journalists, and Western diplomats gathered at the court as the verdict was announced. Kriger, the youngest of the four at 24, said defiantly after the verdict: “Everything will be fine. Everything will change. Those who sentenced me will be sitting here instead of me.”

The lawyers for the accused announced plans to appeal, stating that no substantive evidence had been presented during the trial. Navalny’s widow’s press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, condemned the ruling, saying the journalists were punished merely for doing their job.

The German foreign ministry also criticised the ruling, stating on X that the verdict showed how Russia’s constitutional guarantee of press freedom “is worth nothing” under Vladimir Putin’s regime.

The sentences come just over a year after Navalny died in an Arctic penal colony under circumstances still not fully explained. Since then, Russian authorities have targeted Navalny’s associates and family, including the imprisonment of three of his lawyers earlier this year.

Amid the ongoing war in Ukraine, the Kremlin has also tightened its control over media, passing laws that ban criticism of the military and driving many independent outlets into exile. The four jailed journalists join a growing list of media professionals detained under Russia’s expanding definition of “extremism.”