The poisoning of Putin critic Alexei Navalny

Alexei Navalny, the most important opposition leader in Russia, is unconscious in hospital after drinking poisoned tea on an airplane. This has happened before: Anna Politkovskaya, the crusading Russian journalist, was also poisoned on an airplane. She recovered, but was later murdered outside her apartment. This latest assassination attempt comes just as anti-government demonstrations gain strength in Belarus and the Russian Far East, demonstrations which have built on the example of Navalny, among other things. Over the past decade, Navalny promoted a new ethos and new forms of dissidence in Russia, using the internet to interact with millions of people, inspiring people to find new ways to participate in public life.

I wrote this about him in 2011; since then, Navalny has become far more sophisticated, authoring powerful documentaries which attract millions of viewers. But it does give some idea of where he started:

Alexei Navalny, the de facto leader of the demonstrators who thronged freezing Moscow on Christmas Eve, minces no words.