Upcoming prisoner swap: That’s why Putin wanted Navalny dead now of all times

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According to his team, Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny († 47), who died in a Russian prison camp, could have been exchanged for the Tiergarten murderer imprisoned in Germany.

“Nawalny should be released in the coming days because we had made a decision to replace him,” the political director of the Navalny Anti-Corruption Fund, Maria Pevchich, said in a video published on YouTube on Monday.

“This is the absolutely illogical, irrational behavior of a crazy mafioso.”

At the beginning of February, Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin (71) was made an offer according to which the zoo killer Wadim K., convicted in Germany in December 2021, could have been handed over to Russia – in exchange for Navalny and two Americans. Pewtschich did not say who exactly was involved in developing these so-called exchange plans or how specific they were.

Pevchich accused Putin of personally ordering Navalny’s murder. He did not want to release Navalny at any cost. Pewtschich suspects that he realized that the West was willing to exchange Vadim K. and then decided to get rid of Navalny as an object of exchange. “This is the absolutely illogical, irrational behavior of a crazy mafioso,” she said.

Wadim K. murdered a Chechen exile in Berlin in 2019. K. is said to have committed the murder on behalf of the Russian state authorities. There was repeated speculation that Putin wanted to free him as part of a prisoner swap. He recently confirmed this in an interview with American talk show host Tucker Carlson (54).

‘Of course the Kremlin cannot exert pressure’

According to authorities, Navalny died on February 16 in the prison camp unofficially named Polar Wolf in the Siberian Arctic region of Yamal. The circumstances of his death are not clear. The politician, weakened by the 2020 poison attack and repeated solitary confinement in the camp, is said to have collapsed during a tour of the icy prison and died despite attempts to revive him. According to Navalny’s team, the death certificate lists “natural” causes.

Authorities kept the body secret for over a week. It is still unclear where and how the funeral will take place. Mother Lyudmila Navalnaya called for a public funeral so that not only family members but also supporters could say goodbye to the Russian opposition leader. Navalnaya rejected a request from investigators to agree to a secret burial and publicly accused authorities of blackmail.

After days of fighting over the body, the Kremlin denied trying to influence his relatives. “Of course the Kremlin cannot exert any pressure. These are once again absurd statements by (Nawalny’s) supporters,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov (56) told the Interfax news agency on Monday. Navalny’s mother received her son’s body this weekend after previously calling on Russian President Vladimir Putin to hand it over and publicly complaining about pressure from investigators. They wanted to pressure her to bury her son secretly, she said. (SDA/jmh)

Source: Blick