Navalny Is Returning to Russia

Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny has announced his return to Russia. According to him, he has completed his rehabilitation course and will arrive in Moscow on January 17. "There was never a question of whether to return or not. For a very simple reason: I myself have not left Russia. I found myself in a rehabilitation ward in Germany only because someone tried to kill me," Navalny said in a video message posted on Instagram.

He stated that he has nearly fully recovered his health and can continue his treatment in Russia as well. "President Vladimir Putin's servants continue to act as usual, opening new criminal cases against me. But I am not interested in what they plan to do with me. Russia is my country, Moscow is my city, and I miss it," he added in the video caption.

It is worth recalling that Navalny's health sharply deteriorated on August 20, 2020, while flying from Tomsk to Moscow. The plane making the flight made an emergency landing in Omsk, where he was hospitalized at the city’s emergency hospital. It is known that before the flight, Navalny drank tea at an airport café. On August 22, Navalny was flown to the Charite hospital in Berlin, where specialists later announced that he had been poisoned, and experts from the German armed forces found traces of a toxic substance belonging to the Novichok group in skin, blood, and urine samples.