Aleksei A. Navalny, the jailed Russian opposition leader, said on Wednesday that Russian authorities have instituted new absurd terrorism charges against him that could lead to life in prison.
Navalny's comments, posted on his Twitter account, came as he appeared on separate extremism charges that are widely seen as politically motivated.
The anticorruption activist, who started an anticorruption movement before becoming one of the most influential critics of the Kremlin, is currently serving a sentence in a prison colony for fraud and contempt of court. Since returning to Russia after recovering in Germany from a poisoning attempt that the West blamed on the Kremlin, he has been charged multiple times by Russian authorities.
The comments were relayed on social media by his supporters from the courtroom on Tuesday, saying that an investigator had informed him on Tuesday that a terrorism case had been instituted against him that would be heard in a separate trial by a military court. The Russian authorities did not confirm the charges.