Putin Announces Agreement to Exchange Navalny

Russian presidential candidate and current president Vladimir Putin has announced that he agreed to the exchange of Alexei Navalny. The head of the Russian state made this statement during a conversation with reporters.

“A few days before Mr. Navalny’s departure from life, some of my colleagues and individuals not working in the administration told me that there was an idea to exchange Mr. Navalny for some individuals who are in detention in Western countries. You can believe me or not, but the person who approached me hadn’t even finished speaking when I said, ‘I agree,’” said the Russian president.

Putin noted that he agreed only under the condition that Navalny would never return to Russia after the exchange.

Navalny passed away on February 16 at a maximum-security prison in YANAO. He had been imprisoned since 2021 when his conditional sentence in the “Iv Roshe” case was replaced with real imprisonment for violations of the terms of his probation. After several trials on other criminal charges, including creating an extremist community, fraud, and contempt of court (insulting the judge who was trying him for slandering a war veteran), the final term of imprisonment reached 19 years (in a maximum-security prison).