Russia says poisoned opposition leader Navalny is 'free' to return

Russia’s opposition leader Alexei Navalny is welcome to return to Russia, the Kremlin announced on Wednesday, following the poisoned opposition leader’s discharge from a German hospital.

"As regards his returning to Moscow, like any other Russian citizen, he is free to do so at any moment," Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman said, as reported by Russian news outlets.

On September 15, Navalny's Spokesperson Kira Yarmysh confirmed that Navalny will return to Russia. "I'll confirm again to everyone: no other options were ever considered”, he said.

Meanwhile, Russia is still claiming that Navalny left Russia with no traces of poison in his body. Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergei Naryshkin said, "It is a fact that the moment Alexei Navalny left Russian territory there were no toxins in his system”.

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Alexei Navalny, the fierce Russian opposition leader is now recovering from an alleged poisoning. Mid-September, he had come out of a medically induced coma.

Now, he seems to be doing even better. The man who has garnered international attention in the recent weeks posted a picture from the hospital on September 15.

One of Russian President Vladimir Putin's fiercest critics, Navalny fell sick on a flight from Siberia to Moscow on August 20, after which he was taken to a hospital in the city of Omsk in Siberia following an emergency landing.

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Novichok was notoriously famous during the Soviet era, and was also used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter who were then in Britain.

A cholinesterase inhibitor, it is part of a grouping of substances that the doctors had identified in Navalny after he was moved to Germany.