By Anna Chernova, Sebastian Shulka, Christian Edwards and Jennifer Hansler | CNN
Negotiations to release Russia’s opposition leader Alexey Navalny in a prisoner swap had reached their “final stage” just before his sudden death, a top aide to Navalny has said.
Navalny and two US citizens were on the verge of being exchanged for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian hitman serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2019 assassination of a former Chechen fighter in Berlin, according to Maria Pevchik, a top aide to Navalny, speaking in a video published Monday on his YouTube channel.
“Navalny was supposed to be free in the coming days because we had achieved a decision on his exchange,” Pevchik said. “I received confirmation that negotiations were at the final stage on the evening of February 15.” Navalny was reported dead in an Arctic prison on February 16.
CNN could not independently verify Pevchik’s claims. The German government declined to comment on the video. In answer to a question about the claims from CNN’s Matthew Chance, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said, “I know nothing about such an agreement.”
A Western official told CNN Monday there were early discussions about a prisoner swap involving Navalny and US citizens, but no formal offer had been made prior to his death. The official did not say whether the discussions involved Krasikov, nor did they say which US citizens were involved.
The State Department would not comment on reports of a potential prisoner swap, and spokesperson Matthew Miller would not say whether such a deal would have included the two Americans designated as wrongly detained in Russia: Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan.
Putin had recently signaled his interest in a prisoner exchange with the West involving Krasikov and Gershkovich. He told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson “an agreement can be reached” to release a man whom he said “eliminated a…
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