Navalnyi was evacuated in an ambulance flight to Berlin in August after an attempt was made to poison him in Siberia. The poisoning clearly cooled the gap between Germany and Russia.
Berlin / Moscow
In Russia the first working week of the year took a surprise when an opposition politician treated in Germany after the poisoning Alexei Navalnyi announced his return home.
Navalny’s message was not a dream or political declaration made on a general level, but he said he had already bought a plane ticket to Moscow.
“On Sunday, I will return home on a Pobeda flight. Come on in, ”Navalnyi told the photo service on Instagram.
Pobeda is a low-cost airline of the national airline Aeroflot, whose name means profit in Finnish.
With notice had an electrifying effect, as the Russian authorities have clearly wanted Navalnyi, who had been in Germany since August, to remain there.
The Russian authorities have opened two new criminal investigations against him, in addition to which the Russian Criminal Sanctions Agency announced this week that it is demanding that Navalny be arrested for violating the terms of a suspended prison sentence. It has also begun the process of making the verdict absolute.
Judgments and diplomas have generally been considered political, and Russia has also been blamed by the European Court of Human Rights. Navalnyi himself wrote on Wednesday as “making new crime cases” an attempt to keep him out of the country.
“The question of‘ return or not ’was never relevant to me because I never left. I had to go to Germany, brought in a resuscitation box, for one reason: there was an attempt to kill me, ”Navalnyi said when announcing his return plan.
Navalnyi was evacuated by ambulance flight to Berlin in August after being poisoned in Siberia by a novice shock. In December, the Bellingcat investigative team and its partners released a report that Navalnyin was trying to kill the long-running security services of the FSB poison group. Navalnyi himself says the order came from the president From Vladimir Putin.
Navalnyin the message started an avalanche of speculation. Will Navalny be allowed on board? Will the flight be allowed to land on the right airport where the sponsors will arrive? Will he be arrested immediately on the ground? Do you face years of imprisonment?
Navalnyi has long been a thorn in the flesh of those in power. The revelations of corruption by the FBK organization he founded have been embarrassing to the elite. For the FSB, Navalny became a public enemy in December at the latest when he got a member of the poison group to report the project on the phone.
However, a particularly big source of irritation for those in power has been the Smart Voting project developed by Navalny, which directs votes in elections to non-ruling candidates.
The project is topical this year, as Russia is scheduled to hold Duma elections in the fall. They are held under the strict control of those in power, but they want to give a picture of a fairly fair election.
Many Russian analysts have explained the clear tightening of those in power in the run-up to the Duma elections. Recently, Russia has enacted a large number of laws that make it significantly more difficult for the opposition and opponents of those in power.
Analysts some of the speculation is pure conjecture, some is some kind of reasoning, and some is based on information from some clicks from those in power. However, final decisions may not yet have been made.
The situation is not simple for the Kremlin. Allowing Navalny’s free return seems weak, at least in the eyes of the force, especially when Putin claimed he was cooperating with U.S. intelligence. Sending him to jail is likely to make him an international hero and give the impression of him as a threat.
“The Kremlin’s pack is confused by the fact that Navalnyi is not afraid of the worst option,” Tatjana Stanovaja wrote on Friday night on his Telegram channel.
Many according to Navalnyin is practically forced to return to Russia. A Russian politician must be in Russia, for example an opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza stated on Twitter.
“Navalny’s return to Russia is unequivocally a heroic act for his supporters and even some of his opponents, demonstrating his courage as a politician,” Levada Center deputy director Denis Volkov said the newspaper Vedomost.
“This return has hardly any immediate impact on his awareness and support for his ideas,” he continued, however.
Navalnyin the real popularity is difficult to assess, as the state media has for years either talked about him negatively or been silent.
In a measurement by the Levada Center in September 20 percent expressed approval of his actions as a politician, but surveyors say many do not consider him a politician because he is not allowed to run. Navalnyi, on the other hand, has created a nationwide active organization, and his Youtube videos garner millions of viewers.
Official Russia has denied its involvement in the poisoning. The television message also appeared In a measurement by the Levada Center in December I grew up on poisoning. Fifteen per cent of respondents said they believed the authorities had tried to assassinate their opponent, 30 per cent said they considered the matter staged and 19 per cent suspected it was a provocation by Western intelligence services.
So no one can judge what kind of reaction Navalny’s possible arrest and imprisonment will provoke in Russia.
Navalnyi however, it is no longer an internal Russian issue, as poisoning also affected relations with the West. For example The EU therefore imposed sanctions to six Russians.
One of the most significant consequences was the clear tightening of relations between Russia and Germany. Germany has played a key role, as Navalnyi was being treated in Berlin and the German Defense Forces laboratory cleared the poison as a novitch neurotoxin.
Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded answers from Russia directly and said the poisoning was a crime that violated the constitutional rights defended by Germany. The severity of the comments was downright astonishing, says the director of the Eastern European branch of the Stiftung für Wissenschaft und Politik in Berlin, the Institute for Foreign and Security Policy. Susan Stewart.
“The lasting effect is that the disappointment in Russia has deepened even further,” he says.
Read more: When the evidence of Navalnyi’s poisoning came, Angela Merkel’s voice weight dropped sharply – it shows that this is now the case with Russia
The harsh use of language tells us how much frustration with Russia has accumulated in Germany. Germany blames Russia from the “park murder” in Berlin in the summer of 2019, and in addition, Russia has, according to Germany, made a breach of information to the German parliament in 2018.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent a rare harsh message to Russia in September, demanding answers to the crime of which Alexei Navalnyi had fallen victim.
In Berlin Russia expert at the European Council of Foreign Relations Kadri Liik considers Navalny’s poisoning a possible symptom of the weakening of Putin’s position and the fragmented functioning of various Russian institutions. According to Liik, the relationship between Russia and Germany has, in a way, fallen victim to this fragmentation.
Park murder, hacking and poisoning may be the actions of independent institutions. The most poisoned poisoning in itself will not strengthen the opposition, or subsequent events will weaken Putin, Liik says.
In Europe, the reassessment of Russia has taken place years ago, and Navalny’s poisoning was, in Liik’s view, Russia’s step in a direction that has already been visible.
“In this way, the Russian leadership is prepared to act against its own opposition, but also in other situations such as Syria. The use of chemical weapons is not very surprising. ”
In Europe let’s now put new hope into whether it could Joe Biden the intensifying transatlantic relationship with the presidency will strengthen the counterweight to Russia’s approach.
Researchers find it clear that the relationship between Germany and the United States is intensifying. One question mark, however, is who will follow Merkel in the German leadership, and what is the ability of the new leader to take the lead. Merkel has announced that she will not continue to lead Germany after the next federal election.
Merkel is considered an exceptionally strong leader relative to Russia. German foreign policy expert Stefan Meister In an interview with HS, he estimates that Merkel has power based on her personality, which Putin respects.
“Merkel may be the only person in the EU that Putin is currently taking seriously,” Meister said In an interview with HS in September.
Germany’s new federal chancellor candidates will be known in the spring, and elections will be held in Germany at the end of September. Foreign and security policy is one election theme among others. However, Susan Stewart points out that the future line can only really be assessed after the election.
“We have often seen that when a new leader actually takes office and has to make decisions regarding Russia, things are different than they are in the speeches before the rise to power.”
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source https://pledgetimes.com/russia-putins-best-known-opponent-alexei-navalnyi-to-return-to-russia-on-sunday-authorities-issue-arrest-warrant/
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