Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny (right, in green) is seen at the passport control point at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on Jan 17, 2021. (KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP)

MOSCOW - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that Western countries' expressions of outrage over the detention of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny were designed to distract their own citizens from domestic problems. 

State prosecutors in Russia asked a judge on Monday to jail Navalny for 30 days, after he was detained the previous evening at a Moscow airport when flying home for the first time since he was poisoned last summer.

"Respect international law, do not encroach on national legislation of sovereign states and address problems in your own country," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Facebook. 

Navalny's case could trigger new sanctions against Russia, especially against an US$11.6 billion project to build a natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, with some EU countries saying they want the bloc to swiftly impose such measures. 

Russia's prison service said he had been taken into custody due to alleged violations of a suspended prison sentence that Navalny, 44, says was trumped up

Navalny, in a video from inside the police station, called Monday's court hearing “the highest degree of lawlessness”.

Around 200 hundred Navalny supporters gathered outside the police station in temperatures of minus 18 degrees Celsius and demanded he be set free, a Reuters witness said.

The court hearing, parts of which were live streamed by Navalny’s allies, may rule for him to be held in custody until a different court decides whether to convert that suspended 3.5 year sentence into real jail time.

State prosecutors asked the court to jail Navalny for 30 days, Ivan Zhdanov, head of Navalny’s ant-corruption foundation, said on Twitter.

Four masked police officers detained the opposition politician at passport control on Sunday evening, the first time he had returned home after being poisoned by what German military tests showed was a Novichok nerve agent, a version of events the Kremlin rejects. 

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Russia's prison service said he had been taken into custody due to alleged violations of a suspended prison sentence that Navalny, 44, says was trumped up. 

It said he would be held in custody until a court hearing expected on Jan 29 that will rule whether to convert that suspended sentence into a real three and half-year jail term. The foreign ministers of Germany, Britain, France and Italy called for Navalny's release. Lithuania said on Sunday it would ask the EU to swiftly impose new sanctions on Russia. 

Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek said he wanted the bloc to discuss possible sanctions. Jake Sullivan, one of US President-elect Joe Biden's top aides, told Moscow to free Navalny, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Twitter he was deeply troubled by Moscow's decision to arrest Navalny. Lavrov dismissed Western consternation.

READ MORE: RIA: Russia's prison authority to seek Navalny's arrest

"You can feel the joy with which these comments (On Navalny's arrest) are coming out," said Lavrov.

"Judging by everything, it allows Western politicians to think that by doing this they can divert attention away from the deep crisis that the liberal model of development finds itself in," he said.