Ahead of the July 18 verdict in the Alexey Navalny trial, it was clear that President Vladimir Putin had a dilemma: Send the country's most charismatic and dangerous opposition leader to jail and risk him becoming Nelson Mandela, or let him free and risk turning him into Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
In the end, due to a bizarre and clumsily improvised volte-face, the Kremlin managed to do both.
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