The Navalny Prisoner Swap Deal That Wasn’t

TOPSHOT - Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny stands near law enforcement agents in a hallway of a business centre, which houses the office of his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), in Moscow on December 26, 2019. Russian police on December 26, 2019 conducted fresh searches at Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's anti-corruption foundation, with his team calling the raid a new bid to disrupt their work. (Photo by Dimitar DILKOFF / AFP) (Photo by DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images)
Julia Ioffe
May 29, 2024

Late Sunday night, Vladimir Putin decided to speak to his supporters after he successfully stole a fifth term as Russian president. He talked about his “victory” and also did something unexpected: For the first time, he publicly mentioned by name the late Alexey Navalny—a cruel irony, since Putin refused to do this while Navalny was alive. But Putin also caused a bit of a kerfuffle in the Russian opposition. “A few days before Mr. Navalny passed away, some colleagues, not members of the administration, some people there told me that there was an idea to exchange Mr. Navalny for some people who are in prison in Western countries,” Putin said. “The person who spoke to me had not yet finished the sentence, I said: ‘I agree!’”