Three Russian lawyers who count Alexei Navalny among their clients have been arrested on charges of participating in an extremist group – Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexey Lipster were detained on Friday after raids on their homes that Navalny’s allies say is part of a Kremlin strategy to restrict his ability to communicate with the outside world. It’s already seriously restricted: Navalny, Putin’s fiercest critic, is serving a 30-year sentence in a maximum security penal colony east of Moscow. His lawyers face six-year sentences if convicted. Given Putin’s Russia bears comparison with Stalin’s in so many ways, it’s notable that they were still at liberty, but their bravery is still remarkable – as is that of Marina Ovsyannikova, the TV news producer who had to flee Russia with her daughter after running onto a set during a live bulletin last year with a placard telling a national audience they were being lied to about the war in Ukraine. Ovsyannikova was admitted to hospital in Paris last week but suspected poisoning has been ruled out.