Navalny aides say he was part of prisoner deal

Russian opposition leader, who died earlier this month, alleged to have been nearing freedom

Aides to Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died this month, asserted Monday 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.

In a video posted to the Navalny team’s YouTube channel Monday, 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, Pevchikh said, Germany would have released Vadim Krasikov, the man convicted of killing a former Chechen separatist fighter in a Berlin park in 2019. Putin praised Krasikov in his interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson this month, describing the convicted assassin as having been motivated by “patriotic sentiments.”

Pevchikh said in the video the West had been insisting on Navalny’s release as part of any deal to free Krasikov, whom Western officials describe as a Russian intelligence agent. By killing Navalny, she said, Putin took the possibility of his release off the table, and he planned to “offer someone else when the time comes” in order to bring home Krasikov.

“Navalny was supposed to be free in the coming days,” Pevchikh, the chair of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said in the video. She did not identify the two Americans she said would have been exchanged along with Navalny.

The Western official said that the discussions had involved swapping Navalny; Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal; and Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive and former Marine, in exchange for Krasikov.

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.

The circumstances of Navalny’s death remain shrouded in mystery. He died Feb. 16 at a penal colony in the Arctic, according to Russian authorities. The medical report on his death says he died of natural causes, according to Navalny aides.

After a dayslong dispute with authorities over custody of his remains, his body was transferred to his mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, on Saturday, his spokesperson said. But it remained unclear whether his family would seek to conduct an independent autopsy before his burial.

Navalny himself was not aware of the details of the talks but knew his potential release through a prisoner exchange was being discussed, according to his spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh.

“He understood there were some talks going on, but he didn’t know any details,” Yarmysh said in a text message.