Mikhail Voskresensky / Reuters

Prominent anti-corruption blogger and opposition figure Alexei Navalny leaves the Investigative Committee in Moscow, Russia, on Tuesday.

MOSCOW -- Russian investigators charged street protest leader Alexei Navalny with theft Tuesday and banned him from leaving the country, threatening a heavy jail term in what supporters say is a growing crackdown on dissent by President Vladimir Putin.

Navalny, an anti-corruption blogger who has organized demonstrations that have dented Putin's authority, dismissed the charge as absurd and other opposition leaders accused Putin of using KGB-style tactics to try to silence his critics.

Other moves which the opposition depict as a crackdown on dissent since Putin began a six-year term in May include a law increasing fines for protesters, closer controls of the Internet and tighter rules for foreign-funded campaign and lobby groups.

Russia's federal Investigative Committee said in a statement that Navalny, 36, had been charged over the theft of timber from a state firm while he was advising a regional governor in 2009, and he could face a 10-year sentence.

"I have been charged and ordered not to leave," Navalny said after emerging from the Investigative Committee headquarters, where he had been summoned for the presentation of what he had expected would be a less severe charge.

"This is really quite absurd and very strange because they have completely changed the essence of the accusation, compared to what it was before," Navalny, who had been questioned repeatedly since the case was opened in 2010, told reporters.

He made clear he would not be silenced. "I will continue to do what I have been doing, and in this sense nothing changes for me," said Navalny, who is also a lawyer. "We believe that what is happening now is illegal. We will use the methods of legal defense at our disposal. What else can we do?"

From March 2012: Anti-Putin activists pay high price, but refuse to back down

Leading voice of dissent
Navalny is one of the few people seen as capable of emerging as a viable leader of the fractious opposition, although critics say he has nationalist tendencies.

He gained prominence by fighting corruption at state-controlled companies and used the Internet to do so, appealing to a tech-savvy generation of urban Russians who have turned away from the mainstream media.

Before parliamentary elections last December he helped to energize a struggling opposition, popularizing a phrase referring to the ruling United Russia party, then headed by Putin, as the "party of swindlers and thieves."

'Serious problems' with vote that kept Putin in power, monitors say

He was also among the leaders of large protests prompted by allegations of fraud in the election on behalf of United Russia, which saw its big majority in parliament cut to a handful of seats despite the accusations that it had cheated.

'Mortal fear'
"This case has been fabricated from beginning to end," said Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister who is a prominent Putin opponent. "The true reason for what is happening is Putin's mortal fear of losing power. ... He is wildly afraid of the opposition, including Navalny."

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In a reference to the Cheka secret police, a precursor of the Soviet KGB, Nemtsov said: "Putin is using traditional Chekist methods. ... Fabricated cases, charges, arrests, jail."

Putin won a presidential election on March 4 despite the largest protests since the start of his 12-year rule, during which he has served as president for eight years and as prime minister for four. At times attendance at the rallies reached more than 100,000, witnesses said, although they have become less frequent since Putin returned to power.

But opponents say a series of steps he has taken in recent months to tighten control show the former KGB agent is worried about losing his grip on the world's largest country.

Punk rockers go on trial over anti-Putin church protest

Tough censorship law
Putin, who has repeatedly warned against rocking the boat in speeches since his election, signed a law on Monday toughening punishment for defamation and another on Tuesday that opponents say could be used to censor the Internet.

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In a case which critics say will indicate how he plans to treat opponents during his new term, three women from the punk band "Pussy Riot" went on trial Monday over an unsanctioned protest performance at the altar of Russia's main cathedral, where they called on the Virgin Mary to "throw Putin out!"

Their trial entered its second day Tuesday in a Moscow court, and they face up to seven years in jail over a protest they say was aimed against the close relationship between Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church.

Navalny had been detained and served brief terms in custody several times over administrative offenses linked to the protests, but had never been charged with a more serious crime.

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Lawyers for Navalny had said Friday they expected he would be charged over the case in Kirov province. But they had expected him to face a different charge punishable by up to five years in jail, rather than 10.

The Investigative Committee said more than 10,000 cubic meters of timber were stolen as the result of a plot between Navalny and two company chiefs, causing the regional government to lose more than 16 million roubles ($497,000).

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Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP - Getty Images

Anti-Kremlin blogger Alexei Navalny speaks during a rally against the December 4 parliament elections in Moscow, on Dec. 24, 2011. Tens of thousands of people filled an avenue in Moscow to protest against the alleged rigging of parliamentary polls in a new challenge to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin's authority.

LONDON – Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and those who work for him, seem determined to turn a relatively unknown, 30-something protester into a larger-than-life political rival.

It all began on a cold, December 4 afternoon, when Alexei Navalny stood up among a small crowd in Moscow and blasted Putin's United Russia party as one of “crooks and thieves” who had just stolen the parliamentary elections. The Kremlin put him in jail for two weeks. The tactic was obvious: keeping Navalny locked up would hinder his ability to organize a massive anti-Putin demonstration on December 24.

Instead, the move backfired and ended up boosting Navalny's profile – and street cred – at a time when the splintered opposition was hungry for a new leader.

By Dec. 24 he was out of prison and had become the face of the opposition. His rant in the bitter cold that day inspired more than 100,000 people in the street to “take back the election – by force if necessary” from those who had stolen it.
 
But catapulting Navalny into instant celebrity wasn't good enough for the over-anxious Kremlinites. Now they've made him the face of their own absurdity as well. 

Open up last Saturday's edition of Arguments & Facts, a popular national daily, and you'll find a photo of a beaming Navalny standing next to Putin's arch enemy, the oligarch-in-exile Boris Berezovsky, himself sporting a Cheshire cat smile.

theguardian.com

A screen grab from the Guardian shows the original photo of Alexei Navalny with Prokhorov on the top left, the doctored one with Berezovsky and some other fakes that have been circulated online.

The caption reads: “Navalny has never hidden that Boris Berezovsky gives him money for the struggle with Putin.”

Well, it took Navalny and his corral of fellow bloggers a few nano-seconds to work out that the photo had been doctored.

In the actual photo, Navalny is standing next to another, Putin-friendly oligarch, Mikhail Prokhorov, the owner of the New Jersey Nets and a candidate for Russia's presidency.

But standing next to Prokhorov is seen as benign because he's neither considered an agitator nor a serious threat to the Kremlin.

Instead of just pointing out the fakery, Navalny’s supporters took things to the next level – by beaming photos across the blogosphere of him standing next to the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, a space alien, Putin and other action men.

Rich history of air-brushing
The air-brushing of photos for propaganda reasons is an old Soviet art. Joseph Stalin routinely had  friends and allies erased from photos taken with him when they became his enemies (often after he’d had them killed, as in the famous case of Nikolai Yezhov, the leader of the NKVD, precursor of the KGB, in the 1920s.) 

My personal faking favorite is the iconic shot of several Soviet soldiers holding up the hammer-sickle-flag above the German Reichstag building, marking the effective end of the war in Europe in 1945. If you look closely you'll see that the soldier supporting the flag-bearer is wearing a watch on his left arm. In the original, however, he has watches on both arms – suggesting that he might have looted them. The Russian magazine Ogonok removed the second watch just before publication.
 
Of course, the practice is not restricted to Russia. Ever since photographs became a means by which world leaders defined themselves to their public, photos of Hitler, Mussolini, Mao Tse-tung, and going back in time, Grant, Sherman and, yes, even Abraham Lincoln, were doctored in order to enhance their image.   .
 
But seldom has a manipulated photo backfired with the same concussive effect that Navalny's has.

Staff / Reuters

Activists of the pro-Kremlin youth group "Nashi" gather to protest against the activity of Russian blogger, political and social activist Alexei Navalny with a fake placard of him in central Moscow Dec. 26, 2011.

One can even imagine the taciturn Putin, an ex-KGB agent, letting out an unforced guffaw as he scans Navalny's blog and finds the latest “photo-toad” (an English translation of the Russian slang for a doctored photo) of Navalny standing next to Bender, the robot from the comic strip Futurama.

Putin's camp had no doubt hoped to turn Navalny into an enemy of Russia's people. Instead, the Kremlin itself has become a lightning rod for Russians' scorn and mockery, and Navalny has seen himself launched into the stratosphere of a Marvel Comics hero, without even having to lift a megaphone.

In the lead-up to the March presidential election, Putin – still considered a shoo-in to win it all – may yet turn out to be his own worst propagandist.

Jim Maceda is an NBC news correspondent based in London who has covered Russia and the Soviet Union since the 1980s.