The attempts to silence oppositon leader Alexei Navalny have failed.The Kremlin always portrayed him as a minor nuisance, a simple blogger. His poisoning revealed, however, exactly whom the Kremlin considered the main figure opposing Russian authoritarianism. Navalny will emerge from this dramatic incident an even stronger figure

In a hall with over 400 (mostly) students at the Campus The Hague, Mikhail Khodorkovsky spoke about the future of Russia. Khodorkovsky declared himself a staunch supporter of evolutionary change in Russia, from a presidential system to a fullfledged democratic parliamentary republic.