It seems like we should have stopped being surprised long ago whenever we see this kind of insider reporting about the inner workings of one presidential administration or another. And yet it still doesn’t compute: we tend to think that, yes, they’re crooks, but crooks of a particularly vicious kind, operating on an especially grand scale. You’d expect them to be consumed by their big problems and elaborate schemes, with no time for petty nonsense. But petty nonsense is exactly what they spend their time on.
An entire First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration would call up RIA Novosti and make a scene whenever the name “Navalny” appeared in headlines: