Reuters: Navalny Knew About Prisoner Swap And Agreed

The exchange was supposed to take place in mid-February.

Alexey Navalny and his wife Yulia knew about the preparation of the exchange and agreed to it. Reuters writes about this, citing its source close to the negotiations. The exchange was to take place in mid-February.

According to the publication, the discussion of a possible exchange was conducted with the participation of Russian businessman Roman Abramovich (Navalny's colleague Maria Pevchikh mentioned the same in her appeal, but Abramovich did not confirm this to her and did not comment on the situation in any way).

Representatives of the authorities of Russia and Germany participated in the exchange talks. Initially, it was about exchanging the correspondent of the Wall Street Journal Evan Gershkovich, accused of espionage in Russia, for the FSB officer Vadim Krasikov, who is serving his sentence in Germany for the murder of the Chechen field commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili.

Putin was ready to make an exchange only for Krasikov, but the German authorities refused to let him in exchange for Gershkovich, considering the release of the journalist to be an "American problem".

When Navalny was named as another candidate for the exchange, representatives of Germany agreed, the interlocutor of the agency said.

Maria Pevchikh previously said that on the eve of Navalny's murder in the colony, negotiations on his exchange were in the final stage.

"I received confirmation that the negotiations are underway and are at the final stage, on the evening of February 15. On February 16, Alexey was killed," she said.

The Financial Times, citing sources, yesterday wrote that after the death of Alexei Navalny in prison, the German authorities lost interest in the exchange of Krasikov. But the Americans will still try to free Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan.

Alexei Navalny died on February 16 in IK-3 (prison) Polar Wolf — according to the official version, he allegedly fell sick during a walk.