Alexei Navalny's wife, Yulia, said today in a statement published in "YouTube" video that she was both happy and bitter about the Cold War-style prisoner swap that freed leading Russian dissidents last week, nearly six months after her husband died in a Russian penal colony, Reuters reported. announced BTA.
According to Yulia, if her husband had been alive, he should also have been involved in the deal in which Russia handed over the dissidents, along with US and German citizens, in exchange for convicted Russian murderer Vadim Krasikov and other Russians. held in Western prisons.
"At the time, many people thought that this was impossible, that we made it up. But now everything is extremely obvious," she said on YouTube. "Putin did agree to hand over political prisoners in exchange for spies and assassins, and that's what happened. But not for Alexey," Julia added.
Putin had said he was willing to release Navalny, a leading anti-corruption activist who created a national movement, on the condition that he never return to Russia, Reuters noted.