The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Russian authorities’ arrests of opposition leader Alexei Navalny were politically driven.

The European court found on Thursday that Russian authorities violated Mr Navalny’s rights in arrests from 2012 to 2014, and that two of them were expressly aimed at “suppressing political pluralism”.

It ordered Russia to pay Mr Navalny 63,000 euro in damages, and to fix legislation to “take due regard of the fundamental importance of the right to peaceful assembly”.

France EU Russian Opposition
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny (Jean-Francois Badias/AP)

The ruling is final and binding on Russia as a member of the Council of Europe, the continent’s human rights watchdog.

Mr Navalny has faced fraud charges viewed as political retribution for investigating corruption and leading anti-government protests.

The Kremlin dismisses Mr Navalny as a troublemaker with no political backing.