Russia has arrested two allies of opposition leader Navalny by Reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has arrested two allies of the imprisoned Kremlin ally Alexei Navalny, a prominent opposition activist said on Tuesday, adding that they could face extreme charges that could lead to extreme prison sentences.

Russian authorities have in recent months attacked groups affiliated with Navalny, 45, known as President Vladimir Putin’s loudest critic. He is serving a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for violating parole for a fraudulent case he claims was politically motivated.

In June, a Russian court ruled that Navalni’s anti-corruption foundation was “extreme.”

Then, after his allies rallied around a new network of institutions set up for the Russian parliamentary elections in September, authorities began investigating campaign workers on the same extremist charges.

On Tuesday, state investigators arrested former heads of the provincial elections in the Siberian cities of Tomsk and Irkutsk, Leonid Volkov, a Navalny ally in exile, wrote in the Telegram messaging application.

Volkov said the two activists, Kseniya Fadeyeva and Zakhar Sarapulov, tried to persuade him to leave Russia, as he and other dissidents had done, but refused.

The commission of inquiry, the state body in charge of investigating the crimes and filing the allegations, was unable to immediately set out to give its opinion on the case.

Navalny was taken to Germany for medical treatment last year after being poisoned in Siberia, Western experts concluded with Novichok’s military nerve agent.

The Russian government has denied that it was behind the poisoning and dismissed the findings of experts – which led to a new wave of sanctions against Russia – and has accused the West of campaigning against it.