I think he thought it would succeed and put him in power. When that failed he went mostly silent for a long time, probably trying to figure out how to survive. While it is no surprise to anyone (including him) that he was still a target, I think he made a reasonable (though on hindsight obviously wrong) assumption that things have cleared up enough by now to be worth risking travel.
Is every vaguely prominent leader in Russia dumb as rocks? How did he think he’d get away with an attempted coup while leaving the dictator in power?
Did he expect to get points for being bad at a coup?
I think he thought it would succeed and put him in power. When that failed he went mostly silent for a long time, probably trying to figure out how to survive. While it is no surprise to anyone (including him) that he was still a target, I think he made a reasonable (though on hindsight obviously wrong) assumption that things have cleared up enough by now to be worth risking travel.