Kremlin critic Navalny's flight back to Russia 'in holding pattern'

The opposition figure was poisoned in August last year and sought treatment in Germany

Alexei and Yulia Navalnaya  talk in a video posted on the Instagram account @navalny before their flight at the Berlin Brandenburg International Airport BER in Schoenefeld, Germany. EPA

Prominent Kremlin opposition figure Alexei Navalny risks arrest on his arrival in Russia for the first time since his poisoning last year.

One of President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent domestic critics, Mr Navalny was flown to Berlin in August for emergency medical treatment after being poisoned with what German tests showed was a Novichok nerve agent.

Russian authorities threatened to arrest Mr Navalny if he returned to his home country and on Sunday evening the airline he travelled on announced his plane was "in a holding pattern", Reuters reported.

"This is the best moment in the last five months," he told reporters after he boarded a plane in the German capital, bound for Moscow. "I feel great. Finally, I'm returning to my home town."

Mr Navalny was charged and convicted of embezzlement and money laundering in 2014 and handed a suspended sentence – but the European Court of Human Rights ruled the charges "unlawful".

He is the subject of three other criminal cases in Russia, all of which he claims are politically motivated.

Security measures at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport were tightened and journalists barred from covering his arrival, apparently due to coronavirus concerns.