Navalny made a series of crowdfunded documentary films, posted on YouTube, that tied the leaders of Russia to far-reaching financial scams and broad networks of enablers. The videos succeeded because they were professionally made, because they included shocking details—the hookah bar and hockey rink inside Putin’s vulgar Black Sea residence, as well as the vineyard, the helicopter pad, and the oyster farm—and because they linked these stories to the poverty of Russian teachers, doctors, and civil servants. You have bad roads and bad health care, Navalny told Russians, because they have
...more
