A Russian court on Wednesday handed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny a five-year suspended sentence that could end his bid to challenge President Vladimir Putin in 2018 polls.

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The judge at a court in the provincial city of Kirov found Navalny guilty of embezzlement, giving him a five-year suspended sentence and his co-defendant a four-year suspended sentence in a retrial that repeated the outcome of a 2013 trial.

Each was also fined 500,000 rubles ($8,500).