Alexi Navalny has been freed from prison after serving a 30-day sentence for staging illegal protests. His release coincides with the opening of the FIFA World Cup in Russia.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny announced on Thursday that he had been released from custody after completing a 30-day sentence for organizing unauthorized protests ahead of President Vladimir Putin's fourth inauguration last month.
"I'm with you again after a 30-day business trip. I'm so happy to be free," he wrote on Twitter.
He walked free from a Moscow prison just as Russian capital was preparing open the FIFA World Cuplater on Thursday.
The politician had called on supporters to take to the streets and challenge Putin's election last month under the slogan "Not our tsar." Navalny was barred from running in the election by the Russian constitutional court due to an embezzlement conviction from 2014.
The Russian court's decision contradicted an earlier ruling from the European Court of Human Rights, which found the conviction to have been "arbitrary."
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