Thread by @pevchikh

Yesterday was the eighth day of the trial of Alexei Navalny. The defence finally started presenting its position; a total of five witnesses were questioned. Here’s a short summary of what happened.

The first witness was journalist Yevgenia Albats. She said she donated money to Navalny's various projects every month and felt it was the best investment of her life.

The next witness was Sergei Davidis, a representative of the Memorial Human Rights Centre that was recently shut down by the government. He also said that he had been donating money to Navalny’s projects, including his presidential campaign.

Davidis said that he did not feel defrauded at all. According to him, it was clear from the very beginning that Navalny may be banned from the presidential elections, so it can’t be said that he deceived anyone by hiding this fact.

The third witness, Bozena Rynska, confirmed this. She also said that everyone, including herself, knew that Navalny might not be allowed to run for president, but still voluntarily donated money. She also said that the Foundation protected her interests and did a great job of it.

The next witness, Konstantin Margolis, donated money to the Foundation 16 times. He believes that all the money was spent without making a profit. Moreover, as a donor, he regularly received reports from the Foundation on all the money spent.

The fifth witness was history teacher Raushan Valiulin. He worked as a volunteer during Navalny's mayoral campaign and did not receive money for his work, but he saw where it went: on printing campaign materials and supporting the work of the campaign headquarters.

The prosecution constantly stressed that Navalny was being tried not for collecting donations, but for stealing them. It’s a rhetorical trick: he is not on trial for stealing anything; financial expertise confirmed that he did not receive a single cent from the Foundation's money

In fact, Navalny is being tried for allegedly spending the money raised for his presidential campaign and the work of the Foundation on untargeted needs. According to the prosecution, the money collected for the fight against corruption was spent on "extremist activities."

Such allegations would seem insane to any normal person. Therefore, the prosecution tries not to mention it too much and instead keeps suggesting that Navalny has personally stolen something. Hence the many hours of reading out every single transaction on his bank accounts.

12 more witnesses will be questioned today. The prosecution objected, claiming that these witnesses have nothing substantial to say in relation to the case. However, the judge declined this objection.

All of today’s witnesses are donors of Navalny’s various projects. They donated the money voluntarily and do not feel defrauded in any way. If there is someone who can say something substantial in relation to this farcical case, it’s definitely them.

The first witness is opposition politician @IlyaYashin, our long-time friend and ally. Like any sane person, he considers collecting donations for the needs of the Foundation and the election campaigns absolutely normal.

The next witness, Alexei Malinin, says that he always received reports on how his donations were spent. He says everyone knew about Navalny’s previous convictions (which were used as an excuse to ban him from the elections) and doesn’t understand why the “victims” feel defrauded.

Another witness, Igor Aleshkin, says that he always double-checked the financial reports of Navalny’s organisations, as well as all the data from his videos that could be found in public domain. Therefore, he has no claims against Navalny and doesn’t consider himself deceived.

The other witnesses today were Mikhail Lotov, Maxim Poelov, Vladimir Popov, Vadim Rubtsov, Vitali Basov, Alexei Skobelev, Dmitry Monakhov, Svetlana Demchuk and Mikhail Pustovalov. They all said pretty much the same as yesterday’s witnesses, and there’ll be even more tomorrow.

A total of 329 people have expressed their desire to become witnesses for the defence by either providing a written testament or coming to the court personally. Just to remind you, the Investigative Committee has only managed to find 4 “victims”, one of whom refused to testify.