Alexeï Navalny, "a puzzle for Vladimir Poutine"
By announcing his return to Russia, Alexeï Navalny imposes his tempo in the Kremlin.
AP - Pavel Golovkin
Text by: Anastasia Becchio
5 mins
While the opponent Alexeï Navalny intends to return to Russia on Sunday evening, the Russian prison services announced on Thursday their intention to arrest him.
Interview with Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean, director of the Russia center at the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI).
Publicity
Read more
After more than four months of convalescence in Berlin,
Alexeï Navalny is preparing to return to Moscow on
Sunday January 17.
The Russian opponent, victim of poisoning in Novichok last August, according to three European laboratories, believes that he is now ready to resume his way home.
But his supporters will probably not be the only ones waiting for him at the airport: the Russian prison services indicated on Thursday that he will be arrested if he returns to Russia.
They accuse him of having violated the conditions of a suspended prison sentence.
RFI
: If he manages to reach Moscow on Sunday, what reception can Alexeï Navalny expect from the authorities
?
Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean:
The first question is indeed to know if he will manage to take the plane.
On Russian social networks, many jokes are circulating, such as the one which claims that the airline in question will cease its existence by January 17.
More seriously, he is running serious risks.
I exclude the two extreme scenarios.
First of all, where he returns and continues his activity, as he has been able to do despite all the prosecutions, permanent searches of the premises of his Anti-Corruption Fund.
I also want to exclude the scenario of a direct risk to his physical integrity or his life.
It would still be very big.
With
this poisoning affair
, Alexeï Navalny has acquired a real international aura.
He now has the support of heads of state who officially consider him "the number one opponent".
We can clearly see, on the other hand, the panoply prepared for its reception.
All the messages sent by the authorities and the security organs point in the same direction: to discourage him from returning to Russia.
For the Russian authorities, this would be the perfect scenario.
If he manages to return, many court cases await him, such as the Yves Rocher case in which he was sentenced to a suspended prison sentence.
Today, the authorities are threatening to turn this sentence into a real prison sentence.
The Federal Enforcement Service has already announced that somehow he is going to be arrested.
His return will therefore not be easy.
Why did Alexey Navalny decide to return to Russia despite the risks hanging over him?
He is very consistent with himself.
He had the opportunity to leave Russia on several occasions, including after an incident where he received a green antiseptic in his eye.
He then had to go for treatment in a clinic abroad, because he risked losing his sight.
But he always said clearly: "I am with the Russians, this is my country, my choice is to stay here and to fight for freedom and against corruption".
In addition, when moving abroad, a politician, an opponent, loses his aura.
We have seen this in the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Alexeï Navalny does not especially want to turn into Mikhail Khodorkovsky number 2.
Why does he choose this moment to return to Russia? Couldn't he have waited, for example, to come closer to the legislative elections in September?
The legislative elections are still far away.
I think he's afraid of losing momentum.
There may also be a connection with the inauguration of US President Jo Biden which will take place on January 20.
He wants his case to weigh heavily in relations between Russia and the West.
And as he said himself, there is no longer a valid reason for staying in Germany any longer.
He feels in good health and has been abroad for more than four months.
He must have sensed that the time had come to go home.
Since he regained consciousness in the Berlin clinic, it is he who chooses the tempo.
It is he who decides when to publish
the videos
which accuse Vladimir Putin of having personally ordered his murder or which reveal behind the scenes of the FSB, the federal security service, and its curious methods.
He is a real headache for Vladimir Putin.
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Russia
our selection