Navalny was on the list for exchange
In the lists for the exchange of prisoners, which was negotiated by Russia and the countries of the West and which was carried out in August of this year, there were “some odious political figures who, due to reasons beyond our control, did not live to this day.” Such wording is contained in the article dedicated to the exchange “The Long Way Home”, published in the September issue of the magazine “Razvedchik”. This magazine is established by the “Soglasie” fund of veterans of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. The material was published on the SVR website, and the “Agency” magazine drew attention to it.
Obviously, only the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in a Russian colony in February 2024, fits the description given by the authors of the article (not counting the evaluative definition “odious”). Navalny’s last name is not directly mentioned in the article, but no other “political figures” who could be participants in a potential exchange have died in Russia recently.
Shortly after Navalny’s death, his associates from the Anti-Corruption Foundation announced that negotiations on the exchange of prisoners between Russia and the West were at the final stage, and the exchange was to take place literally in the coming weeks, and Navalny was to be a participant in it. Colleagues of the opposition, accusing the Russian authorities of murdering Navalny, said at the time that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered to kill the politician in order to prevent his exchange – although he himself had previously agreed to negotiate about him. At the moment, Navalny’s associates have not presented direct evidence of this version. Russian authorities claim that Navalny died of natural causes.
Putin himself said that a few days before the oppositionist’s death, “some people” told him that there was an idea to exchange Navalny for “some people who are in prisons in Western countries.” Putin said that he immediately agreed, “but, unfortunately, what happened happened.”
At the same time, the Razvedchik magazine claims that negotiations on the exchange were delayed due to the presence of “odious political figures”, which indirectly contradicts Putin’s version. In total, as stated in the material, the negotiations on the exchange were conducted for one and a half years, they were led by Putin’s instructions, including the director of the SVR Sergey Naryshkin and his deputies, “who communicated with foreign colleagues on the territory of third countries.” This information basically corresponds to the data of FBK, whose representatives also claim that the negotiations began last year.
The exchange of prisoners between Russia and the West took place on August 1 at the Ankara airport. As a result of the exchange, more than 10 political prisoners were released from Russian prisons, including prominent opposition figures Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin, as well as American citizens convicted of espionage – journalist Evan Hershkovich and Paul Whelan. Western countries, in turn, released alleged agents of the Russian special services, among whom was Vadym Krasykov, convicted of the murder of Georgian citizen Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin. The exchange was the largest such event in the recent history of Russia and the West.
