Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that he’d agreed to swap Alexei Navalny in a prisoner exchange days before his fierce critic died in an Arctic prison last month.
Several days before Navalny’s death, “some colleagues” had suggested to exchange him “for some people who are in prison in Western countries,” Putin told reporters on Sunday after polls closed in Russia’s presidential election.
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Putin said he had agreed to the proposal, under the condition that Navalny, 47, never returned to Russia. “But, unfortunately, what happened happened … It happens. What can you do? That’s life.”
It marked the first time Putin spoke Navalny’s name in public in years. Last month, Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service said that Navalny, who had been jailed under major fraud and contempt of court charges since February 2021, felt unwell after a walk, “lost consciousness almost immediately,” and died shortly afterward.
His charges had been widely viewed as politically motivated, and numerous officials, including Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs, have accused the Kremlin of murdering Navalny.
Navalny’s longtime ally Maria Pevchikh said last month that talks of a prisoner swap involving the opposition leader had been underway and were in their final stages before his death. She said the proposal could have seen Navalny and two U.S. citizens detained in Russia swapped for Vadim Krasikov, who was sentenced in Germany in 2021 for the killing of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old Georgian-born Chechen dissident.
Putin’s apparent admission has infuriated some of his critics, including prominent Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Khodorkovsky headed energy company Yukos before he spent a decade in prison in Russia for what critics have called politically motivated charges.
“Putin finally mentions Navalny by name, a month after his death,” said Khodorkovsky in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“These ‘revelations’ about being willing to release Navalny on the day of his death are a cruel joke. The reality is that an innocent man was imprisoned after two weeks in a coma, then sent to the Arctic Circle and kept in a punishment cell. ‘Such an unexpected event, he died… How sad…’ The hypocrisy is astounding.”
Bulgarian investigative journalist Christo Grozev said the apparent admission from Putin was unexpected.
“Putin unexpectedly admits that day before [Navalny]’s death the proposal for his swap for Krasikov was brought to him, and he said ‘yes before the gentleman could finish the sentence. On the condition he wouldn’t come back,” he wrote on X.
Newsweek has contacted Russia’s foreign ministry for comment by email.
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