Story highlights "We will continue our campaign and our fight for a better Russia," Navalny said

The judge hands opposition activist Alexey Navalny a five-year suspended sentence

Moscow (CNN) Russia's most prominent opposition leader, Alexey Navalny, was found guilty Wednesday of embezzlement following a retrial in a Russian court.

Judge Alexey Vtyurin handed Navalny a five-year suspended prison sentence.

The conviction will likely bar Navalny, who heads the Progress Party, from standing for the presidency in 2018 as planned, since Russian law forbids convicted criminals running for political office.

Following the sentencing, Navalny tweeted in Russian: "We will continue our campaign and our fight for a better Russia despite this verdict dictated by the Kremlin. We do not recognize it and will overturn it."

Navalny also said via a livestream from the courtroom that the sentence was "a cable from the Kremlin that says they consider us too dangerous to let us run in the presidential election."

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