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There& #39;s something I find just bizarre with the "Navalny is more useful to Putin alive than dead" and "Navalny& #39;s death is the Kremlin& #39;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& #39;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& #39;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& #39;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& #39;s a cult like figure that fanatised young people, that there& #39;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& #39;t believe that he& #39;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& #39;s days people asking : why kill him, he& #39;s old and tired and Yeltsin and corrupt, doesn& #39;t represent anything. And now people asking the same question about a man who& #39;s none of these things.
So why is it never rational to kill opponents in Russia? It& #39;s not when they& #39;re unpopular (such as nemtsov, whose death, btw, never triggered anything). It& #39;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& #39;s "useful alive"... How do we know that? What if it& #39;s just some bravado. Someone once said "these events are beyond our control, let& #39;s feign to control them"
What if it& #39;s just some way to project control and mastery of the situation (plus to hint that Navalny& #39;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?
