«This is life»: Putin comments on Nadezhin’s exclusion from elections and Navalny’s death in prison
During a press conference at the election headquarters, Vladimir Putin answered questions from a journalist from the American TV channel NBC. He spoke about negotiations and readiness to exchange Alexei Navalny, saying: «As for Mr. Navalny. Yes, he passed away. It is always a sad event, but we have had other cases where people have passed away in places of deprivation of liberty. Hasn’t this happened in the United States? It has, more than once. By the way, let me tell you, it will be so unexpected, a few days before Mr. Navalny’s passing, some colleagues told me, not employees of the administration, but some people said that there was an idea to exchange Mr. Navalny for certain individuals who are in places of deprivation of liberty in Western countries.
You can believe me or not. The person who spoke to me hadn’t finished the sentence, and I said, I agree. But, unfortunately, what happened, happened, only on one condition, that we would exchange him, and he wouldn’t come back, let him stay there. That’s it. But this happens. There’s nothing you can do about it. That’s life.»
He also answered a question about Boris Nadezhin’s exclusion from the elections: «If Mr. Nadezhin did not participate in this election campaign, it is, first of all, the result of his unsatisfactory work in preparing for these elections. Perhaps he should have worked more actively with his supporters, avoiding mistakes, avoiding the falsification of the ballots, and so on.»