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There's something I find just bizarre with the "Navalny is more useful to Putin alive than dead" and "Navalny's death is the Kremlin's nightmare"
First if it was such a nightmare, they *might* have done something about the thugs harassing him and his team. They *might* have toned down the media reports a bit. Not that we don't know now what can happen, from plain murder to constant harassment.
And by "now" I mean for five years, since at the very least the murder of nemtsov. If this was such a "nightmare" it has not led to any change of course in anything, rather the contrary.
Second, it seems to operate on the certainty that Navalny's death will turn him into a martyr, will bring people to the streets, etc. Who knows that for sure?
What if his death turns him into just the object of a few demonstrations, allowed or repressed. And then every year you allow or mildly repress some ritual march in Moscow? Big deal!
At a quite pragmatic level, a dead (or comatose) man can do less than a live one. Since his efforts to institutionalise have been quite well repressed, the loss of the "charismatic leader" is a pretty severe blow.
I don't find it irrational at all to suppose that if he dies or remains in a coma, well his team, the fbk and his supporters will have a much harder time to organise.
If your idea of navalny is that he's a cult like figure that fanatised young people, that there's nothing but his charisma (and western money) to keep him going, then yes, it is rational to kill him.
And guess what, even if you don't believe that he's a cult leader, finding competent, well known, "charismatic" national leaders is hard (some political movements never manage to do that). so, yes again, it is rational to kill him.
And I remember from nemtsov's days people asking : why kill him, he's old and tired and Yeltsin and corrupt, doesn't represent anything. And now people asking the same question about a man who's none of these things.
So why is it never rational to kill opponents in Russia? It's not when they're unpopular (such as nemtsov, whose death, btw, never triggered anything). It's not when they are (to a degree, like navalny). So when is it?
Opponents do get killed in dictatorships and not because of some crazy goons, sometimes because killing them is a rational and seemingly safe bet.
And last, about these "Kremlin sources" stating he's "useful alive"... How do we know that? What if it's just some bravado. Someone once said "these events are beyond our control, let's feign to control them"
What if it's just some way to project control and mastery of the situation (plus to hint that Navalny's only alive and well because we allow him to)?
Another thing I find interesting is that it fits well within that framework: yes the system is super messy, Putin of courses does not control everything people do crazy things BUT Putin himself is politically rational. How do we know that?
How do we know that? What do we know about his political rationality? True he's not a mad dog, but how do we know that a political killing just doesn't fit in his calculations?
Many have said that's it's "possible but unlikely" Putin ordered the killing of navalny. Just how unlikely is the question we can't answer. 99%, 95% or 50%?
