Putin began preparations for the opposition`s return

The opposition leader has been recovering in Germany from a poisoning attack widely attributed to the Russian state.

Aleksei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who has been in Germany for months recovering from a nerve-agent attack that Western officials say was carried out by the Russian state, said that he would return to Russia this weekend despite the threat of being jailed upon arrival.

“They are doing everything they can to scare me,” Navalny said in an Instagram post on Wednesday, referring to the Russian authorities. “But I don’t much care about what they are doing. Russia is my country, Moscow is my city, and I miss them.”

At the same time, the Kremlin raised the pressure on Navalny, signaling that he would end up in jail if he returned to Russia. President Vladimir Putin described Navalny as a C.I.A. asset and quipped that if Russian agents had wanted to kill the opposition leader, “they would have probably finished the job.”

This situation puts Putin in a position in which any move he makes will lead to a worsening of his position:

- arrest on arrival will confirm Navalny's status as the chief Putin`s opponent;

- freedom or house arrest would delegitimize the Russian security organization;

- the new criminal trial of the Navalny`s case will become the information and political hit of the month.