– I’m not afraid – VG

Navalny gave his wife Julia a hug and disappeared with the police. Vladimir Putin’s press chief denies knowing what happened at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on Sunday night, Mediazona reports:

– Excuse me, have you been arrested in Germany? I don’t know, says Dmitry Peskov.

Russian prison authorities confirm that Putin’s critic has been arrested. The reason is that they are looking for it in Russia, reports Tass.

Alexei Navalny has a suspended sentence of three and a half years (which he believes to be a purely political sentence) for fraud. According to the prison service, he has not complied with the obligations of conditional sentence and, therefore, has been detained upon arrival in his country of origin. You must go to court or be released within 48 hours.

The human rights organization Amnesty has already declared Navalny a prisoner of conscience.

– Very concerned about the arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, writes Ine Eriksen Søreide in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Twitter-konto Sunday afternoon.

– We hold the Russian authorities responsible for guaranteeing the protection of your fundamental rights. Russia must disclose the circumstances surrounding the Navalny poisoning, continues the foreign minister.

“Alexei Navalny has shown admirable courage by voluntarily returning to the country where he was killed,” said Geir Hønneland, secretary general of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee.

– This courage deserves recognition, even from the Russian authorities. They must immediately release Navalny, drop all charges against him and allow him to carry out his highly legitimate and peaceful political work.

Many of his followers were waiting for him at Vnukovo airport, but the plane was diverted to Sheremetyevo airport in northern Moscow at the last minute. According to Pobeda airline, it happened for “technical reasons.”

Prison authorities have warned in advance that Navalny could be arrested as soon as he sets foot on Russian soil, but the corruption hunter still chooses to return.

He left the plane with the other passengers and continued by bus to the terminal.

– I’m glad I’m back. This is my happiest day in the last five months. Thanks to all the doctors and nurses in Germany. But I belong here. And I am not afraid. “Because I know that the accusations against me are not true,” Alexei Navalny said before heading to passport control at Sheremetyevo airport.

Soon after, the police officers took him away and met him at passport control. His lawyer Olga Mikhailova was not allowed to join.

“Am I arrested or not?” Navalny, a law graduate, repeatedly asked the police on the Nastoyashtsjee Vremja live broadcast.

His wife Julia later left Sheremetyevo.

– This shows how scared Alexei is. They are so scared that it almost paralyzed air traffic in Moscow. Only for a person who went to their home country. He is not afraid. I am not afraid either. Thank you for coming, he told his fans and the media at the airport.

Several of his supporters, who lined up at Vnukovo airport to meet Navalny, were also arrested, according to a video from Radio Svoboda. This applies to both his close collaborator Ljubov Sobol and his brother Oleg:

The OMON special department was responsible for the arrests. Several journalists have also been detained, according to the Dozjd television channel. A total of 58 people entered, according to OVD-Info. It seems like a lot of them will be out on Sunday night.

– It is important to introduce yourself and support the “Berlin patient”, said a young man who was interviewed at the airport. Therefore, he used the same term as Putin in Navalny. The president does not have Navalny’s name on his lips.

It turned out that the fans waited in vain while the plane landed at another airport.

– It is incredible that they are so afraid of us, writes Navalny press manager Kira Yarmysh in Twitter.

Navalny claims that it was the FSB security service that tried to kill him, on the orders of Vladimir Putin. The president has denied it, stating that “if we had stayed behind, we would have finished the job.” By then, Navalny was already dead, according to Putin.

For President Vladimir Putin, the return of the opposition leader from Germany is outright madness.

Putin can hang a huge sign over the Kremlin: “Alexei, please don’t come home under any circumstances.” But I ended up here in Germany, because they were trying to kill me. And those people are now angry that they couldn’t take my life. Now they threaten to imprison me, Navalny said in a video he posted on Instagram before leaving Berlin.

Navalny was poisoned in August while returning home to Moscow after an election tour of Siberia. According to Western experts, an attempt was made to kill him with the Novitsjok poison. Navalny has named FSB agents who are said to have been behind the assassination attempt.

In addition to the three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence, a new fraud case was opened against Navalny at the end of December. This time he is accused of using the money raised for his anti-corruption organization for personal use.