Alexei Navalny opens a new protest season in Russia and rattles the Kremlin

A wave of protests swept across Russia on Saturday — in what appears to be the most significant challenge to Vladimir Putin’s authority in a decade. At least 100,000, likely much more, took to the streets of over a hundred towns and cities over eleven time zones, in the middle of a pandemic, in temperatures that reached minus 50, and despite credible threats and occasional reality of a violent crackdown.