Every dog knows its own, and I know an obscure blogger and a serial electoral also-ran when I see one. Although I cannot decide whether or not I wish that I had his chutzpah.
Having pretended to have been fashionably Novichoked in order to attract attention, a pretence that conveniently entails still being alive, Alexei Navalny has staged a return to Moscow for the amusement of Western media outlets alone, since no one else will have noticed.
And now, he has treated them to "demonstrations" that have been astroturfed by Moscow's Western spooks, secure in the knowledge that the likes of the BBC would cover these Potemkin protests while wildly exaggerating the number of participants. Anyone would think that the hacks were spooks, too.
Next to no one in Russia has ever heard of Alexei Navalny, and if Vladimir Putin wanted him dead, then he already would be. He is no more "the Leader of the Opposition", or "a leading Opposition politician", or a "prominent activist", or anything like that in Russia, than I am in Britain. In fact, while he is only one year older than I am, I have condescended to contest a great many more elections than he ever has. Or ever will.
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