Freed Kremlin critic Navalny: He will run for Moscow mayor

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who returned to the capital Saturday following his surprise release from jail, said he will contest Moscow's mayoral elections, according to dpa. "We will take part in the elections, and we will win," he said on arrival at the Yaroslavsky train station in central Moscow. Hundreds of supporters, who had come to greet him with loud cheers and bouquets, chanted: "Navalny is our mayor! Navalny! Nalavny!" The 37-year-old lawyer, who arrived from the city of Kirov, told the crowd: "We are a strong people's movement. I did not think that we were so strong." Navalny was accompanied by his wife Yulia and his former business partner Pyotr Ofitserov. Police had cordoned off the Yaroslavsky station and anti-terrorism units were on guard. Earlier, an anonymous caller had warned of a bomb in the station. Navalny and Ofitserov walked out of the regional court in Kirov on Friday after a judge ruled that their arrest the previous day, following sentencing for embezzlement by a district court, had no legal basis. The ruling did not overturn the prison sentences handed down Thursday - five years for Navalny and four years for Ofitserov - but it left observers puzzled about whether it reflected infighting between different factions in the Russian leadership. Incumbent Sergei Sobyanin has said that he wants Navalny to participate in the September 8 election, leading to speculation that the powerful mayor had lobbied for Navalny's release to make the vote look more legitimate. Navalny's campaign managers have argued that his release came after they announced a boycott of the election and thousands of protesters took to the streets. Polls, however, suggest that Navalny would get less than 10 per cent of votes, trailing far behind Sobyanin at more than 40 per cent.