Bill Browder: Navalny 'not cut from the same cloth' as other politicians in the West

Russia's President Vladimir Putin will not have welcomed the return of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, an expert has told Euronews.

The 44-year-old flew to Moscow on Sunday five months after someone tried to kill him using the nerve agent Novichok.

The opposition leader has blamed Putin for the attempt on his life.

Yesterday, Navalny was arrested shortly after he touched down. He will be in custody for at least 30 days and has called on supporters to protest.

Bill Browder, head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign and author of Red Notice, a book about corruption in Russia, told Euronews that Putin had thought he'd dealt definitively with one of his sharpest critics.

"Putin thought the threat of jail meant he wouldn't come back to Russia and would slowly become a political non-entity, " said Browder.

"But Alexei Navalny is not cut from the same cloth as politicians in the West and his ideas and hopes for his country come before his own personal ambitions and safety.

"He was ready to go back to Russia and put himself in harm's way."

Watch the full interview with Browder in the video player, above.