At the time the authorities had clearly wanted to avoid turning Navalny into a political martyr. He had run-ins with the police, but initially the punishments were smaller scale. In March 2017 I remember being crammed into a Moscow courtroom where he was being prosecuted for resisting arrest at a street protest."Millions of people back the battle against corruption," he told me from the dock. "That shows the Kremlin is categorically wrong to claim it enjoys enormous support." He was found guilty and sentenced to 15 days behind bars.
