MOSCOW – Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny announced on Wednesday that he plans to return to Russia this weekend, four months after he was evacuated to Germany following an assassination attempt in Siberia.
“The question of whether or not I should return never occurred to me,” Navalny wrote on Instagram. “It’s because I’m not gone. I end up in Germany for one simple reason – in an intensive care unit: they tried to kill me. ‘
Navalny was poisoned in Siberia in August, where he was placed in an artificial coma by local doctors. His condition is described as serious, and after several days of attempts by the German government and activists to lobby, he was flown to Berlin by medical ambulance.
Once in Berlin, German scientists determined that the toxin was a type of nerve agent from Novichok. This weapon was created by the Soviet Union, and Russia claims to have destroyed its supply of the substance. Several independent laboratories in several countries support the findings of Germany.
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Novichok was also used by Russian secret agents in an attempt to assassinate former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the UK in 2018. Russia has denied involvement in the attempt, citing allegations of attempted murder of Navalny.
“I survived,” Navalny wrote in his post. ‘And now Putin, who ordered my murder, is shouting all over his bunker and ordering his servants to do everything possible to stop me from coming back. The servants act as always: they invent new criminal charges against me. ”
Navalny has been signaling for months now that he intends to return to Russia after recovering from his poisoning. During this time, he faced additional legal challenges from Putin’s government and allies.
Navalny and his supporters interpret this as a message to say that he would be better off staying in Germany.
“But what they are doing is not interesting to me,” Navalny wrote on Wednesday. “Russia is my country. Moscow is my city. I miss them. That’s why I went to the site of Pobeda this morning [airlines] and bought tickets. On January 17, Sunday, I return home. ”
Navalny made clear his intention to return in an interview in October. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman at the time, said that as a Russian citizen, Navalny had every right to return. However, Peskov and other officials also claimed that Navalny was a CIA asset.
Navalny’s return is the basis for a potentially dramatic showdown between Putin’s government and its most prominent critic.