Putin confirms agreement to exchange Navalny, reportedly just hours before his death in prison

"Some colleagues, some people told me that there is an idea to exchange Mr. Navalny for some people who are in prisons in Western countries a few days before his death," the dictator claimed.

“I immediately agreed to this offer with the condition that after the exchange, Navalny would not return to Russia – ‘let him stay there’.”

Putin called Navalny by name for the first time. Navalny's associate Leonid Volkov emphasized.

“A month after cynically killing him,” said Volkov, who survived an attack in Lithuania on the eve of the Russian elections.

“He himself confirmed that he killed so as not to exchange. Putin is relishing his impunity, a blood-sucking bug. He will burst soon, with all that blood he sucked, there will be a splash. Putin killed Alexei Navalny, and now he decided that there was no need to pretend anymore. He confirmed it himself. He promised to kill more and more."

Putin reportedly discussed Navalny’s exchange just a few hours before the death of his rival on March 8.

Russian authorities announced the death of 47-year-old Navalny on Feb. 16. He was in a penal colony in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug in the Russian Far North.

Navalny's entourage confirmed his death the next day.

He was buried on March 1 at the Borisovsky Cemetery in Moscow. The ambassadors of the European Union and the USA attended the funeral.