Opposition Russian politician Alexei Navalny was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on his return from overseas treatment after a suspicious poisoning attempt on his life by Russia’s FSB spy agency.
Navalny, who investigated corruption in Vladimir Putin’s inner circle had provoked protests and angered the country’s most powerful men, had promised to return home despite signs the Kremlin was preparing to send him. the arrest.
Navalny was arrested by police shortly after a flight from Berlin landed on Sunday afternoon. He was due to rub at Vnukovo airport in Moscow, where hundreds of supporters had gathered. Authorities closed the airport at the last minute, and sent a Navalny plane to Sheremetyevo, away from the waiting media.
Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said the Kremlin was appalled by Navalny and pictures showed a large crowd wanting to welcome him. “Until recently, it was impossible to believe them [the authorities] they were scared. But here ‘s the proof, ” she tweeted.
After landing in Russia, Navalny and his wife left the plane before boarding an airport bus with other passengers towards the building’s premises. He said he was “delighted to be back”, saying: “This is the best day in the last five months. I’m home. “The criminal cases against him were all“ done ”, he said, adding that justice and truth were on his side.
Police officers met Navalny at passport control and arrested him. Navalny kissed his wife and gave her a hug. He then left with the officers.
The Russian federal federal service department confirmed the arrest of Navalny. The official reason is that he did not appear at a parole hearing. He could face years behind bars if a prison sentence he received in 2014 is changed to a prison term.
Earlier, hundreds of his supporters blocked protests at Vnukovo airport to meet the returning dissent. Shortly before his plane landed, “Omon” riot police entered the airport. Dozens of people were arrested, including Navalny’s brother, Oleg, and close supporters. There were calls for “fascism” when the supporters were dragged away.
Navalny was in good spirits on the plane shortly before his arrest, telling reporters flying with him from Berlin: “I’m not scared.” He said he was “delighted”. to return to Russia after nearly five months of conquest by Germany.
He joked that he was more worried about the icy winter awaiting him in his city than the authorities were. “What bad things could happen to me inside Russia?” He asked. “I have every right to come back.”
Russian law enforcement had threatened the Navalny prison in an apparent attempt to keep him in exile in Berlin, where he had been recovering since August. Doctors at the Charité clinic in Berlin identified the poison used against him as a member of the novichok family, similar to the one used in the Salisbury attacks.
While in Berlin, Navalny was involved in a study with the Bellingcat website trying to get his life, which revealed a team that had hit FSB that had overshadowed the country for years. Navalny personally received an acknowledgment from a member of the work in a publication that was seen as a real disgrace to the group and to Putin, a former KGB officer and one-time head of the FSB. Putin, who never mentions Navalny by name, dismissed the Bellingcat report as “evacuating”.
Since then, Russian critics have increased pressure on Navalny, who has sparked political and investigative activity that has become one of Putin ‘s most vocal and influential critics and intellectuals.
Novichok refers to a group of zero agents developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 80s to circumvent international restrictions on chemical weapons. Like other zero producers, they are organophosphate fertilizers, but the chemicals used to make them, and their final structures, are considered classified in the UK, USA and other countries.
The most powerful of the novichok products are considered more lethal than VX, the most lethal of the experienced zero producers, which include sarin, tabun and soman.
Novichok agents work in the same way, by overloading muscles and glands. Treatment for the release of novichok would be the same as for other zero agents, that is with atropine, diazepam and drugs called oximes.
The chemical structures of novichok representatives were publicly unveiled in 2008 by Vil Mirzayanov, a former Russian scientist living in the USA, but the structures have never been publicly tested. They are thought to be available in a variety of forms, including as a dust aerosol.
The novichoks are called agents or binary because they only become fatal after mixing two harmless parts. According to Mirzayanov, they are 10 to 100 times more toxic than normal zero agents.
Speaking to the Independent channel rain, anti-Vladimir Kara-Murza campaigner said a “smart” regime would have neglected Navalny’s return. He described the Putin system as “unwise” and said he had made strong efforts to ensure that Navalny would remain in exile.
Kara-Murza was similar in Putin’s behavior to that of Yuri Andropov, the Soviet politburo leader and hard-working KGB leader. Andropov has espoused high-profile critics to the west, including writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn and human rights activist Vladimir Bukovsky.
Navalny had every right to return home despite his arrest, Kara-Murza said. “You can only be a Russian politician from within Russia. Externally, you lose relevance. “
The Moscow prison service earlier in the week said it had orders to arrest Navalny for recovering parole hearings missed at the time, which could overturn a three-and-a-half-year sentence passed in December. to the hard time of imprisonment.
And Russia’s investigative committee has opened a criminal investigation into an indictment of the anti-corruption fund that could carry a ten-year sentence if brought to court.
Navalny had explained his decision to come home by saying he had “never considered deciding whether or not to return”. “I survived,” he said in a video with more than 1.9m comments on Instagram. “And now Putin, who ordered my murder, is screaming in his bunker and ordering his servants to do everything to hold me back. His servants work as usual: making new criminal charges against me. “
But he would return despite that, he said. “Russia is my country, Moscow is my city, I miss them.”
Russian law enforcement has re-launched criminal investigations into Navalny over the past decade held in courtrooms or locked at home in house arrest. His brother Oleg was also serving three and a half years in prison for the same treason case where Navalny was sentenced to be hanged. The allegation is said to have been political. But authorities have so far handed Navalny a lengthy prison sentence, possibly to evade backlash.