President Vladimir V. Putin described the demise of the imprisoned opposition chief Aleksei A. Navalny as an “unlucky incident” and claimed he had been able to launch him in change for Russian prisoners held within the West.
Mr. Putin, in a information convention after Russia’s presidential election, stated that “some individuals” had informed him earlier than Mr. Navalny’s demise “that there was an concept to change Mr. Navalny for some individuals held in correctional amenities in Western international locations.”
“I stated, ‘I agree,’” Mr. Putin stated. “Simply with one situation: ‘We’ll commerce him however guarantee that he doesn’t come again, let him keep over there.’”
He added: “However this occurs. That’s life.”
The feedback, in response to a query from NBC Information, have been Mr. Putin’s first about Mr. Navalny’s demise at a penal colony within the Arctic — and a uncommon second, if not the primary, when the Russian president uttered Mr. Navalny’s identify in public.
Aides to Mr. Navalny asserted after his demise that he had been on the verge of being freed in a prisoner change. A Western official informed The New York Instances on the time that “early discussions” on the potential for such a swap had been underway when Russian authorities reported Mr. Navalny lifeless on Feb. 16.
The Western official stated that the discussions had concerned swapping Mr. Navalny together with two People imprisoned in Russia — Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Avenue Journal, and Paul Whelan, a company safety government and former Marine — in change for Vadim Krasikov. At the moment imprisoned in Germany, Mr. Krasikov was convicted of killing a former Chechen separatist fighter in Berlin in 2019.
“It is a unhappy occasion,” Mr. Putin stated about Mr. Navalny’s demise. “However we’ve had different instances when individuals have handed away in correctional amenities. And what, hasn’t this occurred in the US, too?”
Whereas Mr. Navalny was alive, Mr. Putin’s distaste for him was such that he by no means stated his identify in public, in keeping with the Kremlin’s archive of Mr. Putin’s interviews and speeches.
Mr. Navalny practically died in 2020 after being poisoned by a military-grade nerve agent whereas on a visit to Siberia. Western officers described the poisoning as an assassination try by the Russian state.
