Alexei Navalny announced his return to Russia in a video on Instagram.

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Navalny instagram account / AP / SIPA

Russian opponent Alexei Navalny, recovering in Germany after suffering suspected poisoning in August, announced on Wednesday that he would return to Russia on Sunday, January 17 despite a threat of a prison sentence.

“The question 'to come back or not' has never arisen for me.

Simply because I haven't left.

I ended up in Germany when I got there in a resuscitation box, ”the 44-year-old opponent said on his Instagram page, adding that he had taken a ticket on a regular line on January 17.

Anti-corruption activist and sworn enemy of the Kremlin, Alexeï Navalny was uneasy in August when he was on a plane, returning from an election tour.

The aircraft had made an emergency landing in Omsk in Siberia, where the opponent was hospitalized 48 hours before being evacuated, in a coma, to Germany.

It came out at the beginning of September and three European laboratories concluded that it was poisoned by a Novichok-type nerve agent, a substance designed by Soviet specialists for military purposes.

This conclusion was confirmed by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) despite denials from Moscow.

A flight on a regular line

" I survived.

And now (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, who gave the order for my assassination (…) tells his servants to do everything to prevent me from returning, ”declared Alexeï Navalny.

“This morning, I did my usual exercises, which I have been doing every day for the past few months, and I told myself that I was practically cured,” the opponent explained in a video accompanying his message: “Understanding this, I watched the flights of the Pobeda company and bought a ticket home.

Sunday, January 17, I return to Moscow ”.

Since coming out of the coma, Alexeï Navalny accuses the Russian special services (FSB) of having organized his attempted murder at the request of Vladimir Putin, which the Kremlin categorically rejects.

The opposition leader and his allies accuse the Russian authorities of doing everything to prevent him from returning to Russia.

This week, the courts registered a complaint asking for the conversion of a suspended prison sentence targeting him in prison.

The opponent claims that the complaint was filed by the Russian Prison Service (FSIN) for a conviction dating from December 2014. “They are doing everything to frighten me,” he said in his video.

At the end of December, an investigation for "large-scale fraud" was opened against him, the Russian Investigation Committee indicating that he is suspected of having spent on his personal use 356 million rubles (3.9 million euros at the current rate) of donations.

In mid-December, the British investigation site Bellingcat published an investigation with several media claiming to identify eight FSB agents involved in a follow-up of the opponent for years.

Alexeï Navalny assured him that he had tricked one of these agents on the phone to make him admit that he had participated in his poisoning, a "falsification" according to the FSB.

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