The Kremlin said on Thursday that a call by opposition leader Alexei Navalny to hold nationwide protests and back a boycott of next year’s presidential election would be investigated, to see if it broke the law. Navalny is a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin. Polls indicate that the current Russian autocrat, who has dominated the country's political landscape for 18 years, is on course to comfortably win re-election on March 18. Navalny said his own exclusion makes a farce of the ballot.
