Alexei Navalny was also scheduled for prisoner exchange

Joy everywhere, cheers from relatives and praise from and for everyone involved: After the successful prisoner exchange between the West and Russia, the world is breathing a sigh of relief. But Putin’s most prominent opponent, of all people, did not make it alive onto the plane that originally had a seat for him: Alexei Navalny.

Everything had to remain secret. It was only a few hours before the spectacular exchange between East and West that there were any concrete signs. In Russia and Belarus, civil servants drove prisoners to the airport to put them together on a plane to the West.

One deal too many?

They were all considered Putin’s hostages and had been convicted in mock trials for some absurd offenses. The German Patrick S., for example, was facing up to seven years in prison for allegedly importing a bag of cannabis gummy bears into St. Petersburg. The sentence was in some cases ridiculously high. The now exchanged US ex-soldier Paul Whelan was to spend 16 years in a penal colony because he was allegedly receiving a USB stick with alleged secret information.

Many people are likely to share the assessment of CDU foreign policy expert Roderich Kiesewetter, who speaks of hostage diplomacy. He suspects that a later exchange may have already been planned at the time of the convictions.

The West was preparing the exchange just as secretly. It was only the surprise pardon of Rico K., who faced the death penalty in Belarus, that indicated that a window for a prisoner exchange was opening in the short term.

Clearly at the top of Putin’s wish list was Vadim Krasikov, the so-called “Tiergarten murderer”. However, his release seemed out of the question – Germany’s Attorney General was said to have been against it. Only a hasty intervention by Justice Minister Marco Buschmann, who ordered the release, saved the deal.

Alexei Navalny’s long struggle

A deal that would probably also include Alexei Navalny.

Russia’s most prominent Putin opponent was poisoned in January 2021 and subsequently treated in Germany, among other places. After his voluntary return to Russia, Navalny was sentenced to three and a half years in prison in February 2021. The sentence was increased to a total of 19 years in prison camp in further trials in 2022.

All verdicts were internationally assessed as politically motivated. On February 16, 2024, Navalny died under unclear circumstances in a Siberian penal camp. Navalny’s mother Lyudmila was told that the cause of death was “sudden death syndrome,” a kind of instant death. But neither this information nor the information about the time and circumstances of death could be proven beyond doubt.

Too late for Navalny

It now became clear: Navalny was also on the West’s wish list. He was to be on the plane with those to be freed. “We worked with our partners on an agreement that would also have affected Alexei Navalny,” said US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan when asked in Washington. In concrete terms, there was already a well-developed plan to free Navalny through an exchange in the days surrounding the Munich Security Conference in February 2024. But then he died.

This sequence of events is hard to beat in terms of tragedy.

Reaction of Yulia Navalnaya

His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has already reacted to the deal with Putin. In an online message, she described the results as “great joy.” Every release of a political prisoner is “a huge victory and a reason to celebrate.” No one should be a “hostage” of Russian leader Vladimir Putin and “suffer torture and die in Putin’s prisons.”

Although she is aware of the tragedy of her deceased husband, she is still standing up for the many other dissidents. In particular, “Daniel Kholodny, Vadim Kobzev, Alexei Liptser, Igor Sergunin” are currently affected and need help. She calls for “freedom for all political prisoners”.

Sources: , with news agency AFP