The Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny wants to return to Moscow on Sunday after being poisoned. He will land on January 17th with a plane operated by the Russian airline Pobeda, he announced today on Twitter.
After the assassination attempt with a neurotoxin from the Novitschok group, he has been in Germany to heal since August. The 44-year-old wrote that he was never asked to return because he never left Russia.
„I arrived in Germany in a resuscitation box,“ he said, referring to his several weeks coma after the attack in Russia. Navalny was last in Germany for a rehabilitation measure.
He blames a “killer squad” of the FSB’s domestic intelligence agency, operating under the orders of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, for the poison attack last August. Russia denies being involved in the case and is demanding evidence of poisoning from Germany, for example. Only then do you want to initiate an investigation.
Pressure on Navalny increased
Most recently, the Russian authorities increased the pressure on Navalny. Only yesterday it became known that the prison authorities would like to take the opposition activists to jail for allegedly missing the probation order. A corresponding application was made to a Moscow court.
Shortly before the turn of the year, the authority had asked Navalny in writing to meet the requirements of an earlier sentence and to report in person to the Russian authorities. Otherwise there is a risk of imprisonment. The case concerns a conviction from 2014. Navalny wrote that the suspended sentence had already ended on December 30 of last year.
There are also investigations against the government critic for alleged fraud. The Russian investigative committee accused him of having used donations equivalent to 3.9 million euros to his anti-corruption fund for “personal purposes” – for example to buy property and finance holidays. Navalny refused. The Putin opponent had always said that he wanted to continue his work in Russia.
