Moscow, Washington and Berlin were involved in negotiations on the exchange of Alexei Navalny. Bild has learned that in exchange for the politician, Vladimir Putin wanted to receive Russian Vadim Krasikov, a Russian sitting in a German colony, convicted for the murder of former Chechen field commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin.
Earlier, Bild reported that the recent arrest of a German citizen at St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport could also be linked to the Russian authorities’ intention to exchange him for Krasikov. In February, a 38-year-old Hamburg resident who flew to St. Petersburg to visit his girlfriend was found in possession of six gummy bears with cannabis. He had bought them freely in the FRG. Russian customs officials claim that the candies contained the drug tetrahydrocannabinol. The German faces up to seven years in prison.
Putin had earlier hinted at the possibility of swapping Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich for a “patriot” who “liquidated” a man in Europe, in an interview with Tucker Carlson. Krasikov, whose name was previously mentioned in the context of a possible exchange of Gershkovich, but unofficially. Now Putin has announced just such an exchange option.
Alexei Navalny died in the penal colony on February 16, reported the day before the Department of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. It said that after a walk the politician “felt bad, almost immediately losing consciousness,” and “resuscitation measures” did not yield positive results, “doctors of the emergency medical service stated death”.
Officially, the cause of Navalny’s death has not been announced, so propaganda media sources have nothing to confirm the version about a broken blood clot. In turn, Navalny’s lawyer and mother were told in the colony that the cause was “sudden death syndrome”, said ACF director Ivan Zhdanov.
Now the body of the politician is in the morgue of the district clinical hospital in Salekhard. As of February 17, no autopsy has been conducted. Navalny’s body was found bruised from convulsions and indirect heart massage, said a source of Novaya Gazeta – Europe. According to the source, local pathologists were forbidden to do an autopsy. It is quite possible that experts from the capital are waiting in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. There are usually only two flights to Salekhard from Moscow: at 8 am and at 16:40. On the evening of February 17, two flights landed out of schedule, the first jet landed around 6 p.m. and was met by SC vehicles, another source told Novaya.
