MOSCOW, January 27 (RAPSI, Diana Gutsul) – The Moscow City Court on Tuesday upheld the extension of house arrest of Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny, RAPSI reports from the courtroom.

The court thus dismissed an appeal filed by Navalny. He will remain under house arrest until February 14. Navalny considers that the main purpose of his house arrest is to isolate him from social and political activity.

In late December 2014, the Zamoskvoretsky District Court in Moscow passed a suspended 3.5-year sentence on Alexei Navalny in the Yves Rocher Vostok embezzlement case. His brother Oleg was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison and fined 500,000 rubles ($7,600). The Navalny brothers were convicted for embezzling 26 million rubles ($396,400) from cosmetics company Yves Rocher Vostok and 4 million rubles ($61,000) from the Multidisciplinary Processing Company by way of a fraud scheme.

Previously, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, head of the Party of Progress and the runner-up in the 2013 mayoral election in Moscow, received a suspended five-year sentence in the Kirovles embezzlement case and has been charged in several other criminal cases.