Europe | Into the lion’s den

Alexei Navalny returns to Moscow to face Vladimir Putin

And is immediately jailed

|MOSCOW

IT IS 8.30PM on January 17th. Alexei Navalny and his wife Yulia stride through the arrivals terminal of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. A gaggle of journalists is trying to keep up. Mr Navalny spots a bright poster of the Kremlin on the wall. He stops in front of it. Cameras snap. “I am not afraid…this is the happiest day for the past five months of my life,” Mr Navalny declares. “I have come home.”

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Into the lion’s den”

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