Russian opposition leader Navalny knows why Putin and his cronies want to jail him: "They've stolen billions ... they are protecting themselves"

The show trial against Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny will begin next week in the city of Kirov. Navalny, who is falsely accused of stealing logs, sawdust and 16m roubles from a company, knows very well why Vladimir Putin has ordered the trial:

Why does Putin want to jail me? (I have no doubts that he personally has ordered my case). It seems to me the logic is obvious: he and his circle must guard their power. And to stay in power they have no other mechanism than jailing people – which is what they are doing. I'm not the first and, unfortunately, will not be the last: we must be ready for the fact that they will jail many more people. They've stolen billions, they know people are outraged by this, that millions of people share my attitude towards them and they are protecting themselves.

Look what's happening in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan: everywhere the method is the same. Putin takes his example from Lukashenko,Nazarbayev, Karimov. And that's how it will be in Russia as long as they are allowed to jail people, as long as a million people don't go out into the streets. The first protest on Bolotnaya Square scared them – they announced political reforms, then turned on the fear and PR techniques, people started getting scared to go to protests and then the reforms were first stopped, then subverted. As long as they are not really scared, they will continue to jail people.

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