In Court Hearing, Navalny Calls Putin A 'Naked, Thieving King'

Looking gaunt after a weeks-long prison hunger strike, a defiant Alexei Navalny appeared by video link in court on Thursday, where he denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "naked, thieving king."

The hearing comes as Navalny's anticorruption network – the backbone of his political organization – said it would shut down because it could no longer operate amid Kremlin efforts to have it declared an "extremist" organization. Earlier this week, the Babushkinsky District Court in Moscow ordered the network's activities suspended in an apparent prelude to it being permanently shuttered.