Intro

The Russian activist Aleksei Navalny has spent years agitating against corruption, and against President Vladimir Putin. 

Last summer he was poisoned with a rare nerve agent linked to the Russian state. Last week, after recovering in Germany, he returned to Moscow. He was arrested at the airport, but he managed to put out a call for protest, which was answered in the streets of more than a hundred Russian cities.

Today, we look at the improbable story of Aleksei Navalny.

Guest: Anton Troianovski, who has been a Moscow correspondent for The New York Times since 2019. 

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Background reading: 

• Pro-Navalny protests moved across time zones and more than 3,000 people were arrested in at least 109 cities, signaling widespread fatigue with the corruption-plagued political order presided over by President Vladimir Putin.
• The protests presented the Russian government with its biggest wave of dissent in years.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily 

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