In Russia, police raided the homes and offices of activists at 200 sites across more than 40 cities and towns Thursday in the most massive sweep yet against political groups aligned with the opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The government of President Vladimir Putin says the raids were part of a criminal money laundering investigation into Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. Also raided were the offices of Golos, an independent election monitoring group. Opposition groups call the charges trumped-up and say it’s an escalation of a crackdown on Kremlin opponents that included the mass arrest of more than 2,000 people during recent protests in Moscow.