Alexei Navalny returning to Russia for first time since nerve agent poisoning

Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny i

Credit: Alexei Navalny/Alexei Navalny

Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, is returning to the country for the first time since he was poisoned with a nerve agent, and despite the threat of being immediately arrested.

Around five months after he fell into a coma on a plane from Siberia to Moscow, Mr Navalny said earlier this week that he would be returning to Russia, defying the Kremlin’s threats to jail him under one of several active criminal cases, which are widely regarded as politically motivated.

The 44-year-old rose to prominence a decade ago thanks to his anti-corruption investigations. He has since led massive anti-Kremlin protests in 2011-2012 and mounted an impressive presidential campaign before he was barred from running in the 2018 election.

He also won a third of the vote in the 2013 race for the Moscow mayor but has since been slapped with a flurry of charges and two suspended sentences, which disqualifies him from running for office.

Mr Navalny has reportedly made a full recovery from the August poisoning which several independent European laboratories attributed to the effects of the Novichok nerve agent.

The popular opposition leader’s return puts the Kremlin in a tight spot. Arresting Mr Navalny is likely to trigger wide public discontent and more international sanctions while letting him go free risks enraging hard-liners in the establishment who deem him to be a threat to national security. 

Heightened security measures were reported this morning at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport, and authorities warned Mr Navalny’s supporters of fines and detentions for “unsanctioned gatherings” at the terminal.

In Russia’s second-largest city of St. Petersburg, several opposition activists were detained this morning as they were reportedly going to set off for Moscow to greet Mr Navalny.

Alexei Navalny had to be airlifted to Germany after falling severely ill 

Credit: Shutterstock/Shutterstock

Russia authorities raised the stakes ahead of Mr Navalny’s arrival by announcing a new criminal probe against him, this time for allegedly embezzling several million pounds worth of donations for his anti-corruption foundation.

A court could rule to keep him in jail pending the investigation.

Meanwhile, prison authorities confirmed earlier this month that they had issued an arrest warrant for Navalny, accusing him of failing to report to his probation officer at the end of December as his suspended sentence ran out.

Defying the mounting threats, Mr Navalny in a video address earlier this week, said that he was coming back to Moscow on Sunday despite the fact that Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, “is asking his servants to do all it takes to make sure I don’t come back.”

The Kremlin denied any official involvement in the attack that nearly killed Mr Navalny despite the fact that independent investigative group Bellingcat identified several Russian intelligence agents who had been trailing Navalny for days before he fell suddenly ill.

Adding to the embarrassment for the Russian intelligence community, the opposition politician last month released an audio confession from one of the men allegedly behind the poisoning.