This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, says her late husband should have been among those released from Russian jails and prisons last week in a major prisoner swap between Moscow and the West.
In a video statement released on YouTube on August 8, Navalnaya said she and Navalny’s associates had said shortly after Navalny’s death that a prisoner swap involving her husband was in the final stages before he died in a remote Arctic prison in February.
“My husband, Aleksei Navalny, should also have been aboard the plane that first flew in to Ankara and then to Cologne. We said about that half a year ago, right after he was murdered in the correctional colony in Kharp. It was he who was supposed to be exchanged for FSB killer [Vadim] Krasikov, who was serving a life term in Germany,” Navalnaya said.
“Just a thought that Navalny could be out free seemed terrifying for [President Vladimir] Putin, and that is why he killed him,” Navalnaya said, adding that, nevertheless, she was very happy to see many wrongfully imprisoned people released last week.
“It’s been a long time since I felt such relief and happiness, but at the same time I felt bitter,” Navalnaya said.
She mentioned that many other Putin critics remain in Russian prisons, including Aleksei Gorinov; Daniel Kholodny; Navalny lawyers Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin, Antonina Favorskaya, and Aleksei Liptser; sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky; co-chairman of the Golos (Voice) movement Grigory Melkonyants; and other political prisoners.
On August 1, 16 people were released from prisons in Russia and Belarus, including three U.S. citizens — Alsu Kurmasheva, Evan Gershkovich, and Paul Whelan — in exchange for eight Russians, including Krasikov.
Krasikov was convicted in Germany in 2021 and sentenced to life in prison for killing a former Chechen separatist in a Berlin park two years earlier.
In March, shortly after securing a new six-year term, Putin said he agreed to swap Navalny on the condition that he not return to Russia.
