Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who was the target of a state-sponsored assassination attempt using a chemical nerve agent, intends to return to Russia on Sunday after recovering in Germany from the attack, the Washington Post reports.
Despite the risk of imprisonment or additional threats to his life, Navalny will pick up his political activity in opposition to the Russian government led by Vladimir Putin. Putin insinuated that Navalny has been long-term surveillance, including possibly when he was hospitalized in Germany recovering from the toxin Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent.
“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin, who gave the order to kill me, is screaming in his bunker and tells his servants to do everything to prevent me from returning,” Navalny said in an Instagram post. “Servants act as usual, fabricating new criminal cases against me. But I’m not very interested in what they are doing. Russia is my country, Moscow is my city, and I miss them.”