Russian gambit

Demonstrators raise toilet brushes at a pro-Navalni protest in Moscow.MAXIM SHEMETOV / Reuters

In chess the gambit, which derives from the Italian word

("trip"), is a move consisting in sacrificing a piece at the beginning of the game in hopes of obtaining a future advantage.

It is a tactic that should not be alien to Alexei Navalni, whose talents as a strategist few deny.

With no alternatives to Putin, he has emerged as the only preacher in the desert covering Russia after two decades of the former's supreme power.

Despite his inferiority of means ...

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