Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly mentioned Alexei Navalny’s name for the first time in years, stating at a press conference after his re-election victory that he had agreed to exchange the opposition leader for prisoners held in Western countries before Navalny’s death in an Arctic jail.
Putin indicated that he accepted the proposal from “some colleagues” under the condition that Navalny would not return to Russia.
Putin’s remarks seemed to support a claim put forth by a close associate of Alexei Navalny, Maria Pevchikh, regarding negotiations between Russian and Western officials for a prisoner exchange. According to Pevchikh, the proposed deal involved the release of Navalny, who was serving a prison sentence in Russia, and included Vadim Krasikov, an FSB agent imprisoned in Germany for the murder of a former Chechen commander in Berlin in 2019.
Upon his return to Russia in 2021, Alexei Navalny was promptly arrested, just five months after being poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent from the Novichok group. Western leaders attributed the poisoning to Russian authorities, while Navalny himself accused the FSB secret service, which operates under Putin’s direction.
