Allies of Russia’s Navalny face years in prison as part of a growing crackdown on dissent.

Two allies of Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, Aleksei A. Navalny, were sentenced to years in prison on Wednesday, in a sign of an escalating crackdown on dissent in the country.

Lilia Chanуsheva, the head of Mr. Navalny’s office in the central region of Bashkortostan, and her former colleague, Rustem Mulyukov, are the first of Mr. Navalny’s team to be convicted of national security charges since the Russian government has declared anti-corruption group an “extremist organization” by 2021.

Mr Navalny himself, who has been imprisoned since 2021 for fraud and contempt of court, faces similar charges, in a case widely expected to significantly extend his nine-year prison sentence.

A court in the city of Ufa sentenced Ms. Chanуsheva to seven and a half years in prison for participating in “an extremist organization”. Mr. Mulyukov was given two and a half years for similar charges.

Moscow has been pressuring Mr Navalny’s supporters for years, but the situation escalated in 2020, when he was poisoned in what he said was an attempt to assassinate him by the Kremlin. Russian authorities denied involvement despite evidence gathered by Mr. Navalny. Mr Putin’s government banned Mr Navalny’s organization shortly after the opposition leader returned to Russia after recovering from Germany.

Ms Chanуsheva, 41, was one of the few prominent members of Mr Navalny’s team to remain in Russia. She was detained at the end of 2021.

In a short speech after the sentencing, Ms. Chanуsheva was visibly emotional. She expressed her gratitude to her supporters and urged them to continue writing her letters while in prison.

“I wouldn’t exist without you,” she said, according to one video posted on social media by an exiled assistant to Mr. Navalny, Leonid Volkov.