pawn #2
昨年末のニュースですが，プーチン政権は「粛正」の度合いを強めているようです。ここの pawnはどのような意味でしょうか。まあ，Lobsterよりも小さいものですものね，意味は想像できますね。Astroriverさん，どうぞ。（GP）
Putin Critic Is Arrested at Rally After Suspended Sentence in Fraud Case
The police in Moscow arrested the anticorruption crusader and political opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny on Tuesday for joining an unauthorized, antigovernment rally, just hours after a Moscow court had given him a suspended sentence on criminal fraud charges.
The United States State Department issued a warning of possible violence and arrests at the gathering.
Earlier, in a surprise twist, the court had spared Mr. Navalny jail time by suspending his sentence of three and a half years but ordered his younger brother, Oleg, who was also charged, to serve a prison term of the same length.
The imprisonment of Oleg Navalny, who is generally viewed as a pawn in a larger battle, signaled that the Kremlin was adopting a more sophisticated, if crueler, strategy in seeking to suppress Aleksei Navalny’s political activities: sidelining him, but not making a political martyr of him.
“Aren’t you ashamed?” Mr. Navalny cried out in dismay at the judge, Yelena Korobchenko, as she read the verdict.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/31/world/europe/aleksei-navalny-convicted.html?emc=edit_na_20141230
