Thousands of Russians protest against Alexei Navalny’s imprisonment

“WHO CARES about him?” Russian president Vladimir Putin smirked at a recent press conference. He was referring to Alexei Navalny, his main political challenger, who had survived an attack with the nerve poison known as Novichok and returned to Russia from Germany on January 17th. He was arrested at the airport on spurious charges before he even passed passport control.Mr Putin has never uttered Mr Navalny’s name in public. But the answer to his rhetorical question came on January 23rd, when tens of thousands of Russians in more than 100 cities across the country braved police cordons to protest against Mr Navalny’s arrest and Mr Putin’s corrupt government. It was the largest unauthorised anti-Kremlin demonstration in years, and it resulted in 3,600 detentions.