VLADIMIR PUTIN and his officials refuse to utter the name of Alexei Navalny, the Kremlin’s leading opponent, in public. But in Berlin, where Mr Navalny has been recuperating in hospital since his poisoning in Siberia on August 20th, he is the talk of the town. Mercifully, on September 7th he emerged from a medically induced coma. German doctors caution that it is too early to assess the long-term damage to his health. The harm to Germany’s relations with Russia, though, is already clear.
Few global leaders have known each other as long as Mr Putin, inaugurated in 2000, and Angela Merkel, …read more
Source:: The Economist
