Alexey Navalny detained on return to Moscow - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15150521
CNN wrote:Alexey Navalny detained on return to Moscow five months after being poisoned

By Mary Ilyushina, Sebastian Shukla, Angela Dewan and Caitlin Hu, CNN

Updated 2010 GMT (0410 HKT) January 17, 2021


(CNN) - Russia's leading Kremlin critic, Alexey Navalny, was detained by police in Moscow on Sunday, moments after his return to the country and five months after he was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok.

Navalny was taken away by police officers without explanation, his spokesperson Kira Yarmysh tweeted. His lawyer, who had also flown in from Berlin, was not allowed to accompany the opposition leader, she said.

Live footage from Russian broadcaster TV Rain showed him talking with dark-uniformed and masked officers at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, then kissing his wife Yulia before walking away with them.

The couple were returning from a five-month stay in Germany, where he had been recovering from the Novichok poisoning. They landed at Sheremetyevo just after 8 p.m. local time (12 p.m. ET), according to flight data information.

"This is the best day in the past five months," Navalny told journalists at the airport just before his arrest.

"Everyone is asking me if I'm scared. I am not afraid," he said. "I feel completely fine walking towards the border control. I know that I will leave and go home because I'm right and all the criminal cases against me are fabricated."

Navalny was placed on the country's federal wanted list last month for violating terms of probation related to a years-old fraud case, which he dismisses as politically motivated. A statement on Sunday from the Federal Penitentiary Service confirmed Navalny had been detained, and said he would remain in custody until a court hearing later this month, according to TASS.

ImagePassengers and journalists take photos of Alexey Navalny as he takes his seat on the flight Sunday.

Navalny has been a perennial thorn in Russian President Vladimir Putin's side, raising concerns for his safety in the country.

After his poisoning with military-grade Novichok in August, a joint investigation by CNN and the group Bellingcat implicated the Russian Security Service (FSB) in the poisoning, piecing together how an elite unit at the agency followed Navalny's team throughout a trip to Siberia, where Navalny was poisoned and fell ill on a flight to Moscow.

The investigation also found that this unit, which included chemical weapons experts, had followed Navalny on more than 30 trips to and from Moscow since 2017. Russia denies involvement in Navalny's poisoning. Putin himself said in December that if Russian security services had wanted to kill Navalny, they "would have finished" the job.

Nevertheless, several Western officials and Navalny himself have openly blamed the Kremlin.

Flight diverted to Sheremetyevo

ImageRussian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, right, and his wife, Yulia Navalnya, on a Pobeda airlines plane
heading to Moscow before take-off from Berlin on Sunday.


Navalny had originally been scheduled to land at Vnukovo airport on Sunday, where a crowd of hundreds of supporters and journalists waited to greet him. The flight appeared to be diverted at the last minute to Sheremetyevo. CNN has been unable to establish the reason why.

Russian media broadcasts showed police arresting several allies waiting at Vnukovo amid temperatures of around -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees F), including politician and lawyer Lyubov Sobol and Ruslan Shaveddinov, who works for Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation.

Before his flight on Russian carrier Pobeda took off from Berlin on Sunday, Navalny thanked the other passengers. "Thanks to you all, I hope we will get there fine," he said according to a live feed from TV Rain. "And I'm sure everything will be absolutely great."

He also thanked Germany for hosting him in an Instagram post on Saturday, praising its citizens as "nice, sympathetic, friendly people."

Several European leaders reacted quickly to news of Navalny's detention.

"The detainment of Alexey Navalny upon arrival in Moscow is unacceptable. I call on Russian authorities to immediately release him," tweeted Charles Michel, President of the European Council.

The Austrian Ministry of Affairs tweeted that it was "deeply concerned" about Navalny's detention, adding: "A vibrant civil society and political opposition are cornerstones of all democratic societies. Austria calls for his immediate release and a full & independent investigation into the attack on his life."

Lithuanian President Gitnas Nauseda, described the arrest as "another evidence of Kremlin's efforts to systematically abuse human rights and democratic freedoms."

And Latvia's Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš also called for his release, writing that "in a democratic society, political differences are settled in discussions, not by force or repression."

What's next for Navalny?

Navalny and his Anti-Corruption Foundation have been the subjects of a number of legal cases, which he and allies believe are politically motivated.

In 2014, Navalny was found guilty of fraud after he and his brother Oleg were accused of embezzling 30 million rubles ($540,000) from a Russian subsidiary of French cosmetics company Yves Rocher. While Navalny was given a suspended sentence, his brother was jailed.

The FSIN now accuses Navalny of violating the terms of his probation by failing to show up for scheduled inspections while in Germany. It has requested that a court replace his suspended sentence with a real prison term.

A hearing has been scheduled for January 29. If the FSIN request is granted, Navalny will likely be jailed for 3.5 years.

If Navalny is not convicted later in January, he will still face an investigation for a newer fraud case, in which he and his Anti-Corruption Foundation have been accused of misusing donations from supporters.

"The situation with Navalny looks like two trains running towards each other at full speed, bound to collide," said Tatyana Stanovaya, a visiting fellow, also at the Carnegie Moscow Center. "There will be many victims."

Attacks on Navalny's allies have indeed continued. Pavel Zelensky, a cameraman with Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, was arrested Friday and will be detained until the end of February.

According to Agora, a Russian human rights organization, Zelensky was accused of extremism for tweets from September, in which he blamed the government for journalist Irina Slavina's self-immolation. Before taking her own life, Slavina blamed pressure from Russian law enforcement for her decision to self-immolate.

CNN's Claudia Otto and Fred Pleitgen contributed to this report.

So Putin's hardened the line on Navalny. It's really interesting that <<Putin himself said in December that if Russian security services had wanted to kill Navalny, they "would have finished" the job.>> Was that supposed to mean that it hadn't been them or that they hadn't wanted to kill him?
#15150730
just guessing, is this brexit spinn, if so probably orchestrated by MI-- with threats to Navalny, its too coincidental with the potential brexit fiasco around financial sector [1]

on other hand maybe he is terminally ill so on his own hand he decided to rush in Russia, at least like that he would have bigger chance to survive through constant care due to local political risks!?

but its obvious that after Biden is positioning himself as president that instantly Russia is becoming again the prime euroatlantic geopolitical target, at least as motivation for bigger compactness of nato, in this respect as always uK have had the lead in the past two decades, maybe Blair now will jump strongly on the antirussian bandwagon!?
#15150751
It's funny - and more than a little shocking - how gullible western leaders are every time there's a "resistance" figure in a designated enemy country. Navalny is a prat, with ties to a lot of pretty unpleasant people on Russia's far right. I suspect the US, UK and EU like him because they think they have another Yeltsin on their hands.
#15150765
Atlantis wrote:Apparently Navalny went back because he would be politically dead in exile.

So, what is the plan? Become a martyr to the cause?

I'd rather be curious as to whether what Putin's plan is, I'd guess Navalny will get something like the Khodorkovsky treatment. The guy has balls, nonetheless.
#15150784
Heisenberg wrote:It's funny - and more than a little shocking - how gullible western leaders are every time there's a "resistance" figure in a designated enemy country. Navalny is a prat, with ties to a lot of pretty unpleasant people on Russia's far right. I suspect the US, UK and EU like him because they think they have another Yeltsin on their hands.


Since Navalny is a nationalist, as you pointed out, he can't be another Yeltsin, selling Russia to the West.

Try to be a little consistent.
#15150803
Atlantis wrote:Since Navalny is a nationalist, as you pointed out, he can't be another Yeltsin, selling Russia to the West.

Try to be a little consistent.


Unlike other Russian liberals, Navalny is willing to support candidates of Putin's nasty puppet opposition. That makes him more of a problem for the Kremlin.
#15150805
I think there is no need to explain that if Navalny did know that he will be detained the minute his plane lands (and he knew; two days before the flight it was announced that he will be prosecuted for probation violation) and he still came to the airport and boarded the plane it means he is absolutely sure nothing will happen to him. Most probably because someone he trusts to and who is able to give a 'get out of a jail' card promised him there will be no problems with his return. Was it personally the German chancellor or some Russian stateman in high position is not important.
#15150810
If Navalny can harness the power of others to bring Putin down and change Russia for the better(for both her own citizens and the world) then he should definitely go for it.

Russia is a disgrace to herself, to Europe, to Orthodoxy and to her own people.
#15150813
annatar1914 wrote:It is no coincidence that Navalny was returned to Russia shortly before Biden's inauguration as US President. Navalny is a tool and pawn of greater powers and politically of himself means nothing.

Why are you so sure he was returned, and didn't choose to return?
#15150819
noemon wrote:Russia is a disgrace to herself, to Europe, to Orthodoxy and to her own people.


hm, this is personal prejudice or fact based opinion, we can open new thread for further ontopic elaboration, but in this context I'll say Navalny can just hurt Russia in every respect, first he is radical that potentially could make as internal so as external problems [1] then he is no match as political figure to Putin in respect to geopolitics, and last he is too much tied to west so he would become sovereign as Putin ...
#15150820
Ganeshas Rat wrote:I think there is no need to explain that if Navalny did know that he will be detained the minute his plane lands (and he knew; two days before the flight it was announced that he will be prosecuted for probation violation) and he still came to the airport and boarded the plane it means he is absolutely sure nothing will happen to him.


You don't understand humans, do you?
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