MOSCOW, February 9. /TASS/. Blogger Alexey Navalny’s team members get instructions from NATO countries on how to carry out subversive activities, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.

"Everything is pretty simple. On February 8, 2021, Poland’s permanent mission to the EU held an online meeting involving [Leonid] Volkov and [Vladimir] Ashurkov, as well as EU countries, the US and the UK. In fact, it was a meeting of the NATO countries. They gave instructions to the ‘opposition’ members - who are actually their agents of influence - on how they should be more cunning in their future subversive activities," Zakharova pointed out.

According to her, it explains why the Navalny squad reconsidered the February 4 decision to put off unauthorized rallies for the spring. "The West has invested too much money and resources into this to put everything off for the spring. They realize that the West-fuelled information campaign will die out by the spring. They can no longer take advantage of the chemical weapons issue without providing evidence so they are ready to go to the limit," the Russian diplomat noted.

Unauthorized protests took place in Moscow and other big Russian cities on January 23 and 31. On February 2, unauthorized rallies were held in downtown Moscow after a court had sentenced Navalny to an actual prison term for numerous probation violations in an embezzlement case.