The opposition chief has been recovering in Germany from a poisoning assault extensively believed to have been carried out by the Russian state.
The Russian opposition chief Aleksei A. Navalny, heart, at a march in Moscow final 12 months.Credit…Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
- Jan. 13, 2021, 3:52 a.m. ET
MOSCOW — Aleksei A. Navalny, the Russian opposition chief who has been in Germany for months recovering from a nerve-agent assault extensively seen as carried out by the Russian state, mentioned on Wednesday that he would return to Russia this weekend regardless of the specter of being jailed on arrival.
Mr. Navalny mentioned in social-media posts that he had purchased a ticket for a flight to Moscow this Sunday. His announcement that he’ll return got here simply two days after Russia’s jail authority petitioned a court docket to imprison Mr. Navalny for what it mentioned was violating the phrases of an earlier suspended jail sentence.
“They are doing everything they can to scare me,” Mr. Navalny mentioned in an Instagram post on Wednesday, referring to the Russian authorities. “But I don’t much care about what they are doing. Russia is my country, Moscow is my city, and I miss them.”
Mr. Navalny was poisoned by a military-grade nerve agent in Siberia in August in what he and Western officers say was an assassination try by the Russian authorities. He fell right into a coma, and was flown to Berlin for remedy.
He mentioned on Wednesday that he now believed he was properly sufficient to return to Russia. He purchased tickets on the low-cost airline Pobeda, he mentioned, and deliberate to fly again to Moscow on Sunday.
“Come meet me!” he mentioned.
