Russian leader accused of ordering Navalny’s death to stop him being exchanged for FSB hitman serving life sentence in Germany

Russian leader accused of ordering Navalny’s death to stop him being exchanged for FSB hitman serving life sentence in Germany

Alexei Navalny’s allies have alleged that Vladimir Putin had the opposition leader killed in jail to sabotage a prisoner swap in which Navalny would have been exchanged for a convicted hitman jailed in Germany.

Maria Pevchikh, a close ally of the opposition leader, said in a video that Navalny and two US nationals were in line to be exchanged for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian FSB security service hitman who is serving a life sentence in Germany for the assassination of a Chechen former separatist in Berlin.

“Navalny should have been free in the next few days because we had secured a decision to exchange him,” Pevchikh said. “I received confirmation that the negotiations were at their final stage on the evening of 15 February.” Navalny was reported dead on 16 February.

    • Manucode@feddit.deEnglish
      24·
      3 months ago

      He might have wanted to exchange just these 2 US nationals for Changoschwili’s murderer and made it seem as if he would exchange Navalny as well to make the deal more appealing to the German government.

  • awwwyissss@lemm.eeEnglish
    11·
    3 months ago

    Doesn’t make sense to me… Navalny was IN Germany and voluntarily went back to Russia knowing Putin would probably murder him.

    Did he change his mind or something?

  • jobby@lemmy.todayEnglish
    8·
    3 months ago

    So I’ve been bombarded on one post by hexbears saying that Navalny was a straight-up fascist who called for Muslim genocide.

    What’s the truth about him?

    • BestBouclettes@jlai.luEnglish
      7·
      3 months ago

      Probably somewhere in the middle, not as good as what western media made him out to be, but leagues better than Putin I assume.

    • rdri@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      3 months ago

      All the bad stuff you can find about him is false or presented in a misleading way, by either pro-Putin propaganda or people who likes to get triggered by clickbait titles.

      E.g. about the Muslim related thing: because the ad in question featured a photo of Chechen (?) soldiers, and the message about the right to bear arms was worded roughly as “you should be able to defend yourself from cockroaches”, clever people decided he compared Muslims to cockroaches. Even to this day in Russia, Chechen people are massively (and rightfully so) considered dangerous, and bearing arms is not legalized. I watched him for years and Muslims were never on his agenda. The ad was created in 2007 and available on Youtube on his personal channel to this day. Guess not enough Muslims were upset about such “calls for genocide”, heh. There is another ad about illegal immigrants and they too are still a problem for Russians.

      Personally, I think he was the best politician of this time, maybe not only in Russia. Having watched him for years, there was never an ounce of radicalism or otherwise calls for unfair treatment of anyone. There were points to disagree but he was always open to public discussion and debates. They are correct when they say he was a hero Russians need but didn’t deserve.

      tl;dr: Navalny was against criminals, not Muslims.

      • Sybil@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        3 months ago

        he never shied away from nationalism. he’s closer to a nazi than you’re letting on.

        • rdri@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          3 months ago

          The problem with your statement is that you assume a certain kind of nationalism. While he was only going for solving problems for Russians.

          Governments who implemented visa requirements for immigrants are closer to nazi than him I guess.

          • Sybil@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            3 months ago

            you’re suggesting he proposed dropping visa requirements?

            I also want take a moment to say hey, I like you. you’ve been more cordial and communicative than almost anyone who has disagreed with me on this topic

            • rdri@lemmy.worldEnglish
              3·
              3 months ago

              He proposed to implement them basically, for citizens of countries much poorer than Russia, to properly regulate who comes, stays and gets jobs. How it already works in any European country or the US.

                • rdri@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  2·
                  3 months ago

                  You oppose something that works everywhere? Will you say current Russia’s immigration policy has more benefits for the country than such policy of the rest of the Europe?

    • denast@lemm.eeEnglish
      6·
      3 months ago

      Earlier in his political career (at least as late as early 2010s) he indeed skewed much more right, somewhat moderately right-wing. For instance he used to partake in russian marches, which are annual demonstrations of partially nationalist, mostly just conservative factions. Here is him speaking at Russian March 2011. He also made several comments about the status of Chechen Republic within Russian Federation (a complicated region that has lead to Russian armed forces clashing with local gov/insurgents in two Chechen wars), I think mainly arguing that it should be excluded from Russian Federation.

      I, however, still believe that in late 2010s he genuinely switched to much more liberal views, mainly focusing on liberal populism.

      In general, while he definitely started off in conservative crowd, it would be a huge overstatement to argue that he continued to be an active fascist and anti-islamist right up to his death.

    • OKRainbowKid@feddit.deEnglish
      4·
      3 months ago

      My Lemmy experience got so much better after moving to an instance not federating with hexbear.