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BERLIN – Sixteen years ago, newly appointed Chancellor, Angela Merkel flew to Moscow. And after meeting Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, he invited opponents and civil rights activists to the German embassy. It was an unprecedented gesture, which his predecessor Gerhard Schroeder had been careful not to do. Even yesterday, in her last face to face with the Russian president, the chancellor did not forget to ask him to free the opposition leader, Alexei Navalny.
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