Navalny marks year after poisoning with anti-corruption call

Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has marked the anniversary of a poisoning attack against him by urging global leaders to focus on combating corruption and to target tycoons close to Russian President Vladimir Putin

MOSCOW -- Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny marked the anniversary of a poisoning attack against him by urging global leaders Friday to put more attention on combating corruption and to target tycoons close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. In an article published in three European newspapers, Navalny chided Western leaders for relegating the fight against corruption to a “secondary agenda” item and said that graft plays an essential part in policy failures, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. “It is precisely the fact that the West ‘failed to notice’ the total corruption in Afghanistan – that Western leaders preferred not to talk about a topic they found embarrassing – which was the most crucial factor in the victory of the Taliban,” Navalny wrote. Navalny was arrested in January upon returning to Moscow from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. Russian officials reject the accusation.