Alexei Navalny in first interview: Putin was behind Novichok poisoning

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Thursday accused President Vladimir Putin of orchestrating his poisoning with the nerve agent Novichok, a calling card of the Russian security services.

Driving the news: In his first interview since being released from a German hospital, where he was kept in a medically induced coma for weeks, Navalny told Der Spiegel that German Chancellor Angela Merkel paid him a personal visit last week.

• "I know it sounds a bit over the top, but Germany has become a special country for me," Navalny said, thanking German politicians and doctors for saving his life.
• "I was impressed by the detail [Merkel] knows about Russia and my case."

The big picture: Navalny's poisoning with Novichok, which was used in the attempted assassination in 2018 of former double agent Sergei Skripal in the U.K., has been confirmed by specialist labs in France and Sweden, in addition to Germany.

• "I assert that Putin was behind the crime, and I have no other explanation for what happened," Navalny told Der Spiegel, adding that he plans to return to Russia.
• "And my job now is to remain the guy who isn’t afraid. And I’m not afraid! When my hands shake, it’s not from fear – it’s from this stuff. I would not give Putin the gift of not returning to Russia."

Russia has vehemently denied any culpability for the attack, with Putin reportedly suggesting in a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron that Navalny poisoned himself.

What to watch: European leaders have demanded that Putin provide an explanation and plan to discuss the matter at a European Council meeting on Thursday and Friday.

• “This is very clearly a murder attempt carried out on Russian soil, against a Russian opposition leader with a chemical agent manipulated in Russia,” Macron told reporters this week. "It is therefore up to Russia to provide clarifications."
• But the European Union's failure to impose sanctions on Belarus over its rigged election, following objections from Cyprus over an unrelated matter, has some expressing doubt that the bloc will be able to cobble together the unanimity required to penalize Putin.

Go deeper: Putin, poison and the pipeline