These words, however, responded to a question about the possibility of a release for Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal correspondent arrested in Russia on espionage charges. Maria Pevchikh, however, explains that it was the entrepreneur Roman Abramovich – a person capable of dealing with Americans and Europeans – who proposed to Putin an exchange with Navalny, the only way to get Krasikov back. She confirms that for some reason the return home of what Pevchick calls “the Berlin murderer” is crucial for Putin.
Putin changes his mind
The rest of the story is the answer to the initial question: why then kill Navalny? The idea of seeing him free again was unacceptable for Putin, explains Maria Pevchikh: «he hates him because Navalny he was a true politician, a man for whose ideas people risked their freedom, he was everything that Putin could never be.” So the Russian president said to himself that if the West had accepted in principle the idea of releasing Krasikov, it would be enough for him to get rid of the “bargaining piece” and then, later, offer someone else in exchange. Maybe a dissident less dangerous in his eyes than Navalny, like Vladimir Kara-Murza.
«The behavior of a mad mafia person – says Maria Pevchikh -. Putin knows that Alexei Navalny could have defeated him: he is the future, Putin is the past. And Putin knows for sure that thanks to Navalny’s investigations he will go down in history as a cowardly and corrupt thief.”
Navalny, the body delivered to his mother
His wife also knew about the negotiations
According to a source close to the negotiations interviewed by the Reuters agency, both Navalny and his wife Yulia were aware of the prisoner exchange, which should have taken place in mid-February. The latest confirmations took place on February 9, during the visit of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to the White House: if initially the exchange should have concerned only Gershkovich and Krasikov, it was the inclusion of Navalny that convinced the German authorities to accept.
The ceremony for Navalny
While the Fbk Foundation released the video of Maria Pevchikh, spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh made it known that they are looking for an appropriate place to publicly pay homage to Navalny, whose body was returned to his mother after a long wait in Salekhard, in the Arctic. But if it is assumed that the place of burial is Moscow, there remains uncertainty as to the methods that will be permitted by the authorities for a funeral that is certainly destined to turn into a demonstration against the regime. «Navalny was a symbol of defiance – commented the Russian writer Boris Akunin in recent days, speaking to the BBC -. And in the Kremlin’s logic, if a person is no longer there, the problem disappears. But they are wrong. From now on Alexei Navalny will become a real problem for Vladimir Putin. They can’t kill him again. He will live forever, as a symbol.”