Another associate of jailed Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny is going into exile amid an ongoing crackdown against the defunct organizations associated with the Kremlin critic that were labeled extremist earlier this year.
Sergei Boiko is a member of the Novosibirsk city council and former head of Navalny's network of regional campaign groups in the Siberian city until a court labeled it extremist this year, effectively outlawing it.
Boiko wrote on Twitter on November 25 that he and his family would not return to Russia from a business trip, saying that he had information that he would be arrested.
He said that he decided not to return from an unspecified country after the arrest of the former chief of Navalny's support group in Ufa, Lilia Chanysheva, earlier this month.
Earlier this week, the chief of Navalny's network of regional campaign groups in St. Petersburg also said that she had left Russia for an unspecified country. Irina Fatyanova said that she decided to leave Russia after the arrest of Chanysheva.
Navalny has been in prison since February, while several of his associates, many of whom have fled Russia, have been charged with establishing an extremist group.
