- We respect the body, but no one can make us respect such a decision, says Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov about the European Parliament's announcement that Navalny will be awarded the body's major human rights award the Sakharov Prize.
When the award was announced on Wednesday, the European Parliament demanded that Navalny be released immediately, and he was hailed as "the champion of change".
"This is not only an honor, it is also a great responsibility," Navalny wrote on Twitter the next day.
"I am very grateful to the European Parliament for showing this great appreciation to our work," continues Navalny, whose staff conveys his message on social media while in custody.
The 45-year-old Navalny is serving a multi-year prison sentence just outside Moscow.
He has been convicted by a Russian court for not fulfilling a previous conditional sentence when he was cared for in Germany for a long time in 2020 after he was subjected to an assassination attempt with the neurotoxin novitjok.
The European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought has been awarded since 1988 and is named after the Soviet nuclear physicist and peace activist Andrei Sakharov (1921-89).