Several allies of the opponent Navalny arrested at Moscow airport

Several allies of the main Russian opponent Alexeï Navalny, who is on a plane to bring him to Russia from Germany, were arrested Sunday by police at Moscow airport where they had come to welcome him, announced a collaborator of the opponent.

"Lioubov Sobol, Rouslan Chaveddinov, Ilia Pakhomov, lawyer Alexey Molokoyedov, assistant to Navalny Ilia Pakhomov, campaign director Anastasia Kadetova and Konstantin Kotov were arrested," said on Twitter Ivan Zhdanov, one of the closest collaborators of Alexeï Navalny.

A video released by the opposition media MBKh Media shows the police calmly escorting several people, including Lioubov Sobol, a rising figure of the Russian opposition already arrested a few weeks ago.

Will Navalny be arrested on his arrival?

Among other people arrested is Rouslan Chaveddinov, a Navalny collaborator known to have been forcibly sent in 2019 to do his compulsory military service in the Arctic after a search targeting the opponent's organization.

Konstantin Kotov is also a well-known Russian opposition activist, who was released in December after serving a harsh one-and-a-half-year prison sentence for "repeated violation" of the rules for organizing protests.

The opposition newspaper

also reported the arrest of her correspondent at the Moscow airport in Vnukovo, where the plane with Alexei Navalny on board is due to land in the evening.

According to MBKh Media, around ten people were arrested before the opponent's return to Russia, who also risks being arrested immediately upon his arrival on the orders of the Russian justice system.

Russian authorities had warned against participating in any unauthorized "public event" held at Vnukovo Airport, home to some 200 Navalny supporters and riot police units.

The opponent says he is "innocent"

The plane carrying Alexeï Navalny and his wife Yulia took off shortly after 3 p.m. from the German capital, according to AFP journalists on board.

Leaving Berlin, where he was treated after suspected poisoning, he said he was "innocent".

"Am I going to be arrested? It's impossible, I'm innocent," he proclaimed to reporters on board the aircraft. 

When he got on the plane he thanked Germany again for organizing his treatment and convalescence.

"I want to express a big thank you, thank you all, I hope everything will go perfectly, today I am very happy", he said, after being taken directly to his plane, with his wife Yulia, by the German police as a security measure.

Since President Vladimir Putin's worst enemy on Wednesday announced his intention to return to his country, the Russian Prison Service (FSIN) has warned him and assured him that they would be "obliged" to arrest him for violating the conditions of a suspended prison sentence which he received in 2014. Alexeï Navalny, 44, swept aside these maneuvers aimed according to him to "scare" him and instead called on his supporters to come and greet him at the airport Moscow from Vnukovo, where his plane is due to land at 7.20 p.m. (4:20 p.m. GMT).