Moscow: several allies of the opponent Navalny arrested at the airport

The return of Alexei Navalny to Russia does not fail to make people talk. Several allies of the main Russian opponent, who is on a plane to bring him back to his country of origin from Germany, were arrested this Sunday, January 17 by the police, at Moscow airport, where they had come to welcome him, announced an employee of the opponent. “Lioubov Sobol, Rouslan Chaveddinov, Ilia Pakhomov, lawyer Alexey Molokoyedov, assistant to Navalny Ilia Pakhomov, campaign director Anastasia Kadetova and Konstantin Kotov have been 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, who had already been arrested a few weeks ago. Among the other people arrested is Rouslan Chaveddinov, a collaborator of Alexey Navalny, 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 sentence of one and a half years in prison for “repeated violation” of the rules for organizing protests.

Riot police units present at Moscow airport

The opposition newspaper Newspaper Gazette also reported the arrest of his correspondent at the Moscow airport of Vnukovo, where the plane in which Alexeï Navalny is to land in the evening of this Sunday. 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.

Prior to his return, Russian authorities had warned against participating in any unauthorized “public event” held at Vnukovo Airport, where 200 supporters of Alexei Navalny were seated in front of riot police units. The plane carrying the Russian opponent and his wife Yulia took off shortly after 3 p.m. (2 p.m. GMT) from Berlin, according to journalists from Agence France-Presse, present on board.