Navalny part of prisoner-exchange discussion
Aides to Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died this month, asserted Monday that he had been on the verge of being freed in a prisoner exchange with the West.
A Western official familiar with the negotiations said “early discussions” on the possibility of freeing Navalny through such a swap had been underway when Russian authorities reported him dead Feb. 16.
But the official pushed back on the Navalny team’s portrayal of the talks as having been in their final stages.
The official said the discussions had involved swapping Navalny and two Americans imprisoned in Russia — Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive — in exchange for a Russian imprisoned in
Germany.
But an agreement had not appeared imminent, and it was unclear how inclined Russia and Germany were to make such a trade.
“No formal offer had been made, but early discussions to this effect were underway,” the official said.
In a video posted Monday to the Navalny team’s Youtube channel, a top aide to Navalny portrayed the prisoner-exchange talks as evidence of what she described as Russian
President Vladimir Putin’s motive to kill the opposition leader.
The aide, Maria Pevchikh, said Western officials were in advanced talks with the Kremlin on a deal that would have released Navalny along with the two Americans imprisoned in Russia.
As part of that deal, she said, Germany would have released Vadim Krasikov, the man convicted of killing a former Chechen separatist fighter in a Berlin park in 2019.