Russian opposition leader returning home despite arrest threats from the government

Image: Evgeny Feldman/ GETTY

Top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has boarded a flight back to Moscow on Sunday after he recovered from a nerve poisoning a few months ago.

Navalny recently posted a video of him seated on the plane next to his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, as he returns to Russia from Germany. He had been in recovery for several months in Germany. He decided to fly back to Moscow despite incoming threats from the government to have him arrested upon his arrival.

"We're flying home," the caption read.

Navalny's is flying on the Russian state-owned airline Pobeda -- which translates to "Victory" -- is set to land at Moscow's Vnukovo airport at 7:20 p.m. local time.

Russia's federal prison service released a statement on Thursday accusing Navalny of "malicious violations" of a suspended prison sentence from 2014 and pledging to arrest him. He has been jailed multiple times for leading protests against Russian President Vladimir Putin

"The Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia in Moscow is obliged to take all actions to detain the violator A.A. Navalny pending a court decision to replace the suspended sentence with a real one," it quoted.

Navalny became ill in August while flying from Siberia to Moscow and ultimately fell into a coma. Doctors later discovered he'd been poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok.

Publish : 2021-01-17 23:57:00

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