Russia on Friday sentenced three lawyers who had defended Alexei Navalny to several years in prison for bringing messages from the late opposition leader from prison to the outside world.
The case, which comes amid a widespread crackdown on dissent during the Ukraine offensive, has alarmed rights groups that fear Moscow will ramp up trials against legal representatives in addition to jailing their clients.
The Kremlin has sought to punish Navalny's associates even after his unexplained death in an Arctic prison colony last February.
Vadim Kobzev, Alexei Liptser and Igor Sergunin were found guilty of participating in an "extremist organisation" by a court in the town of Petushki.
Kobzev, the most high-profile member of Navalny's legal team, was sentenced to five and a half years, while Liptser was handed five years and Sergunin three and a half years.
The sentences drew outrage in the West.
The trio were almost the only people visiting Navalny in prison while he served his 19-year sentence.
Navalny, Putin's main political opponent, communicated with the world by transmitting messages through his lawyers, which his team then published on social media.
Passing letters and messages through lawyers is a normal practice in Russian prisons.
Navalny's exiled widow Yulia Navalnaya said the lawyers were "political prisoners and should be freed immediately".
- 'New low point' -
The United States, France, Germany and Britain all criticised the sentences.
"This is yet another example of the persecution of defense lawyers by the Kremlin in its effort to undermine human rights, subvert the rule of law and suppress dissent," US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
France's foreign ministry called the court ruling "yet another act of intimidation against the legal profession as a whole", while Germany said that "even those meant to defend others before the law face harsh persecution".
Britain's foreign minister David Lammy called on the Kremlin to "release all political prisoners".
The lawyers were sentenced after a closed-door trial in Petushki -- about 115 kilometres (70 miles) east of Moscow -- near the Pokrov prison where Navalny was held before he was moved to a remote colony above the Arctic Circle.
"We are on trial for passing Navalny's thoughts to other people," Kobzev said in court last week, the Novaya Gazeta newspaper reported.
A statement from the court said they had "used their status as lawyers while visiting convict Navalny... to ensure the regular transfer of information between the members of the extremist community, including those wanted and hiding outside the Russian Federation, and Navalny".
It said this allowed Navalny to plan "crimes with an extremist character" from his maximum-security prison.
In his messages, Navalny denounced the Kremlin's Ukraine offensive as "criminal" and told supporters "not to give up".
Navalny was himself a lawyer and was known for his sardonic speeches in court, attempts to sue officials and long legal tirades defying prosecutors.
He had denounced the arrest of his lawyers in October 2023 as an attempt to further isolate him.
Kobzev last week compared Moscow's current crackdown on dissent to Stalin-era mass repression.
"Eighty years have passed... and in the Petushki court, people are once again on trial for discrediting officials and the state agencies," he said.
- 'To scare you' -
The OVD rights group that monitors political repression in Russia said the sentences showed Moscow was now intent on making defending political prisoners -- a practice that is still allowed but becoming more difficult -- outright dangerous.
"The authorities are now essentially outlawing the defence of politically persecuted people," the group said, a move that "risks destroying what little is left of the rule of law".
Last week, Navalnaya said Russia had refused to remove her husband from its list of terrorists and extremists despite his death.
She published a December letter from Russia's financial watchdog Rosfinmonitoring addressed to Navalny's mother that said her son was still being investigated for money laundering and "financing terrorism".
"Why does Putin need this? Obviously not to stop Alexei from opening a bank account," Navalnaya said.
"Putin is doing this to scare you."