The re-elected Russian president makes his first public comment on the death of the opposition leader, calling it a “sad event”
Vladimir Putin has claimed he agreed to a criminal change involving Alexei Navalny before the opposition leader’s death in an Arctic criminal last month.
Speaking in central Moscow after early results indicated he had won Russia’s presidential election in a landslide, Putin said other anonymous people had proposed releasing Navalny as part of a swap deal with the West days before his death.
“Whoever spoke to me hadn’t finished his sentence and I said I agreed. But unfortunately what happened happened,” Putin said.
It was the first time Putin had commented on Navalny since his death, which he called a “sad event. “
“I agreed to one condition: we will industrialize it and it will not come back. But that’s life,” Putin said. When things like that happen, you can’t do anything about it, that’s life. “
Navalny’s allies have said in the past that Putin had the opposition leader killed in a criminal act to sabotage a change of criminal in which Navalny was allegedly swapped for a convicted hitman framed in Germany.
Navalny’s best friend, Leonid Volkov, said Sunday that Putin’s comments amounted to admitting that he had killed Navalny. “Putin killed Alexei Navalny. And now he knows he doesn’t want to pretend anymore. He proved it himself,” Volkov wrote in X.
The Guardian and other Western media reported that Navalny had been preoccupied in talks about a prisoner swap, though the main points of the deal remain unclear. Putin did not specify who Navalny was allegedly exchanged for, mentioning “some other people who are in the bars. “in Western countries. “
Maria Pevchikh, a close best friend of the opposition leader, said in a video last month that Navalny was about to be swapped for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian FSB hitman serving a life sentence in Germany for the 2017 murder of a former Chechen separatist. Sedan.
Putin’s remarks on Sunday were interpreted by his critics as a way to distance himself from any involvement in Navalny’s death.
“Putin already knew that Navalny was about to be killed, and that’s the only explanation for why he readily accepted [the exchange], so now he can say, ‘Well, you see, this wasn’t for me, I looked afterwards to promote it,'” said Roman Dobrokhotov, an investigative journalist close to Navalny.
Russia’s foreign intelligence chief, Sergei Naryshkin, claimed that Navalny had died of “natural causes. “Putin’s enemies and critics have suffered violent deaths.
After Navalny’s funeral in Moscow, his team suggested voters turn out en masse at noon on Sunday to honor his memory.
Thousands of people formed long lines in Moscow, St. Petersburg and outside embassies around the world at noon in a symbolic demonstration of dissent against Putin’s regime.