Who is Alexei Navalny, and why does he scare Putin so much?
In 2007, he began the anti-corruption campaign that has become his signature issue. He bought small numbers of shares in major Russian companies, including state-run energy giants Gazprom and Rosneft and energy-transport company Transneft, used his shareholder status (and his legal skills) to obtain information about their finances, and then published evidence of their corruption on his LiveJournal blog, including copies of incriminating documents.
His allegations proved explosive. There was a general awareness in Russia that corruption was pervasive in Russian business, but uncovering or prosecuting the specifics of those dealings was seen as a perilous activity.
Navalny’s blog turned that perception on its head. His work replaced general presumptions of corruption with specific, outrageous accusations. His documentation of graft and theft made the officials involved appear clumsy and foolish, not intimidating. And by exhorting his followers to engage in similar activism, Navalny began to normalize anti-corruption campaigning, turning it into something that ordinary people do in their spare time, rather than the futile quest of lone idealists with high tolerance for risk.