“Russia’s most prominent opposition figure Alexei Navalny has been given nine years in a ‘strict regime penal colony’ in a fraud case rejected by supporters as fabricated. Navalny was detained when he returned to Russia last year, after surviving a poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin. He is already serving three and a half years in jail for breaking bail conditions while in hospital.” That lede by the BBC is a little too soft on the Kremlin. Everyone outside of Putin’s media bubble knows that Navalny’s only crime was to survive Putin’s attempt to have him murdered. And Navalny, who Bill Browder calls Nelson Mandela of Russia, didn’t just blame the poisoning on the Kremlin, he proved the case by going full investigative journalist and getting one of the plotters to describe the effort. Navalny’s successful effort to uncover the plot is on full display in the remarkable documentary called Navalny. CNN and HBO are scheduled to broadcast the doc sometime this Spring. That time should be moved up to right now. The doc shows Putin as the lowlife criminal he really is and explains how his crime network operates. It’s also about the connection of reporting and truth to all of this. I strongly urge WarnerMedia to do whatever it takes to start streaming this documentary immediately.

+ AP: US, Ukraine quietly try to pierce Putin’s propaganda bubble.

+ “He survived the Nazi Buchenwald concentration camp during World War II. He survived the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp in the same war. And the Bergen-Belsen camp. Last week, Boris Romanchenko, a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor, was killed when shelling hit his ordinary flat in the war-ravaged Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.” Putin is taking the De out of Denazification.

+ “The US embassy in Kyiv cited Ukraine’s foreign ministry as saying 2,389 Ukrainian children have been ‘illegally removed’ from the Russian-controlled territories of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts and taken to Russia.” Here’s the latest from BBC.

+ Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic on what’s at stake: “The words Zelensky uses also reverberate because they are true. A victory for Ukraine really will be a victory for all who believe in democracy and the rule of law. Citizens of existing democracies and members of the democratic opposition in Russia, Cuba, Belarus, and Hong Kong will all be emboldened.” Ukraine Must Win.

+ I’ll run the NextDraft fundraiser for one more day. The response has been overwhelming. Here’s how it works. You buy a customized NextDraft Ukrainian Superhero shirt at cost. I personally donate $20 to be split between Media Lifeline Ukraine (to defend journalists in Ukraine) and Menduza (Russians trying to get the real story told in their country). I might add one more org if we break a thousand shirts. Let’s go. Spread the word.