Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny’s lawyer Olga Mikhailova commented on the verdict of Moscow's Simonovskiy court’s which sentenced him to 32 months in prison on Tuesday. She said the defence will appeal against the ruling.

“For sure, we will appeal [the ruling]. In addition, we will inform the Cabinet of Ministers of the Council of Europe that the ruling they have made in October 2017 was not followed, moreover, according to this ruling, Alexei Navalny is now in custody and imprisoned,” she said.

The court gave Navalny, who was sentenced to three and a half years in prison, a two-year and eight-month term considering his house arrest during the 2014 'Yves Rocher' investigation and detention from 17 January 2021.

The opposition activist said he shouldn't serve a real sentence under the 'Yves Rocher' case as the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg concluded that his actions didn't qualify as a crime and asked for his release in the courtroom. 

In its decision, the Moscow court said it found the arguments of Navalny's defense related to the decision of the ECHR untenable, since, according to the court, Strasbourg did not mention the illegality of the sentence and after revising the case following a request by the ECHR, Russia's Supreme Court upheld the verdict against the Kremlin critic.

The anti-corruption campaigner was taken into custody on January 17 upon his return to Russia from Germany, where he spent nearly five months recovering from an alleged Novichok nerve agent attack. On January 18, Navalny was sentenced to 30 days in jail for breaching parole conditions of a suspended sentence from a 2014 embezzlement conviction.