[thatsamejew2]

Why he was sure? Since Putin and his circle, contrary to what your propaganda tries to picture, are acting rationally based on the information they have (which may be outdated or incorrect), just as your country, though the means they have are very much inferior to yours. Apparently at some point the perceived risk from Navalny outweighed potential punitive western measures.

Why not just "stay in the west"? And why hadn't Arafat stayed in Tunis and went to the west bank to be then poisoned there by the Mossad? (As the late Uri Avneri claimed)

Closer to the Russian reality, why hadn't Lenin stayed in Switzerland? And what was the end of prince Kurbskiy who tried to oppose Ivan "the terrible" from Poland?

[hax0ron3]

I'm not claiming that Putin is acting irrationally, at least not any more irrationally than other leaders - after all, politicians are still human.

My question is why Navalny would have believed that it would not be rational for Putin to kill him.

Lenin entered Russia at a more advantageous moment than Navalny did. The February Revolution had already happened. The government was new. Navalny, in contrast, entered a Russia in which the government was stable and had been around for a long time.

[thatsamejew2]

He returned to Russia, as I just checked, in January 2021. The sanctions were already working, rouble was devaluating, the country was perceived to bow to western pressure, Ukraine was steadily preparing to enter Donbass and eventually take Crimea (yes, I know your media did not tell you that, but this was the end goal they had in mind, with western support of course). What is so stable about this situation?

[hax0ron3]

That seems like a possible answer.

You don't need to assume that I've been brainwashed by Western propaganda. I generally distrust both the Western and the Russian mainstream narratives about geopolitics.