Alexei Navalny was close to being released from jail as a result of a prisoner exchange deal brokered by former Chelsea chairman Roman Abramovich when his murder was ordered by Vladimir Putin, a close ally of the Russian dissident has claimed.
Maria Pevchikh also suggested Putin’s decision to have Mr Navalny killed was motivated by nothing more than ”hatred” which ran counter to his ”rational self-interest”.
London-educated Russian journalist Ms Pevchikh, who has served as the chairwoman of the board of directors of the Anti-Corruption Foundation since March 2023, and who now lives in Lithuania, outlined her theory in a video uploaded to Mr Navalny’s YouTube channel.
Speaking about efforts to secure Mr Navalny’s release after he was arrested when he returned to Russia from Germany in 2021, she said: “We tried in the most desperate and insane ways, through acquaintances of politicians, through the wealthiest people on this planet who influence these politicians.”
Ms Pevchikh said she had been helped by unnamed individuals some of whom had “risked their careers, and some literally risked their lives conducting unofficial negotiations with Putin’s thugs”.
She added: “We really tried everything. We’ve come a long way and by the Spring of last year our plan was approved.
“Everything could have happened then, a year ago but it didn’t.”
Instead, it had been “an endless game of broken telephone”, Ms Pevchikh explained.
She said: “For two years one official hesitated to write to another, someone misunderstood something, forgot to mention it and didn’t consider it urgent.
“But despite everything, everyone was eventually persuaded.”
During his recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Putin even revealed the name of the man he wanted to swap for Mr Navalny, namely Russian criminal Vadim Krasikov, who gunned down Georgia-born Chechen dissident Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in a park in Berlin in 2019.
Ms Pevchikh continued: “He could have got him if he had given up Navalny.
“After Alexei’s murder, I was told that Roman Abramovich was the one who delivered the proposal to swap Navalny to Putin.
”I did ask Roman Abramovich through mutual acquaintances how, when and under what circumstances he did this, and what Putin said.
“Unfortunately he did not answer these questions but he didn’t deny them either.”
Putin had decided to kill Navalny because he had concluded the West was willing to release Krasikov, and therefore opted to “get rid of the bargaining chip, and offer another when the time comes,” Ms Pevchikh suggested.
She added: “It’s absolutely illogical, absolutely irrational, it’s the behaviour of a mad mafioso.
“But the point is Putin has gone mad with hatred for Navalny.
“Putin hates him so much that he acts to his own detriment and against his own rational interests.”
Asked at a regular news conference in Berlin about the claim by the Navalny team, German government spokesperson Christiane Hoffmann said she could not comment.
Mr Navalny, 47, Russia’s best-known opposition politician, died February 16 in an Arctic penal colony while serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges that he rejected as politically motivated.
His family spent a week fighting with the authorities, who reportedly insisted on a secret funeral, before calling on authorities to release the body.
Western nations have hit Russia with more sanctions in response to Mr Navalny’s death as well as for the invasion of Ukraine, which marked its second anniversary on Saturday.
Mr Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said Monday they were looking for a venue for a memorial service later this week.
