MOSCOW (AP) — A Moscow court decided Thursday to keep Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny under house arrest rather than send him to jail pending trial.

The ruling came as a surprise to many of Navalny’s supporters, who had predicted that President Vladimir Putin — riding on 80 percent approval ratings after annexing the Ukrainian Black Sea region of Crimea in March — would have no qualms about putting Russia’s top opposition figure behind bars.