‘Alexei Navalny supported prisoner swap for…’, Putin's first comment on Kremlin critic's death

livemint.com:

Vladimir Putin said early Monday that he supported an idea to release late opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a prisoner exchange just days before the man who was his biggest foe died. In his first comments to address Navalny's death, Putin said of the dissident's demise: “It happens.

There is nothing you can do about it. It's life." The remarks were unusual in that he repeatedly referenced Navalny by his name for the first time in years — and that they came at a late-night news conference as results poured in from a presidential election that is certain to extend his rule.

Early returns showed him leading with over 87% of the votes in a race with no competition, after years of ruthlessly suppressing the opposition and crippling independent media. Navalny's allies last month also said that talks with Russian and Western officials about a prisoner swap involving Navalny were underway.

The politician's longtime associate Maria Pevchikh said the talks were in their final stages just days before the Kremlin critic's sudden and unexplained death in an Arctic penal colony. She accused Putin of "getting rid of" Navalny in order not to exchange him, but offered no evidence to back her claims, and they could not be independently confirmed.

Putin said Monday, also without offering any evidence, that several days before Navalny's death, “certain colleagues, not from the (presidential) administration" told him about “an idea to exchange Navalny for certain people held in penitentiary facilities in western countries." He said he supported the idea. “Believe it or not, but the person talking to me didn't even finish their sentence when I said: ‘I agree,'" Putin said in response to a question from a journalist about Navalny's death.