Moscow — Russian officials were convinced opposition leader Alexei Navalny wouldn’t come back.

They’d warned he’d be jailed on arrival and steadily ratcheted up threats of new probes, amid allegations ranging from stealing supporters’ donations to working for US intelligence. Even fellow Kremlin critics told the activist it was too dangerous to return from Berlin, where he’d been recovering from a nerve-agent attack he and Western capitals blamed on President Vladimir Putin...

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