ALEXEI Navalny was poised to be freed in a prisoner swap - but Vladimir Putin blocked it at the last minute and had his arch foe killed, it was claimed today.
Former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich had been involved in the doomed deal, according to a sensational new twist outlined by senior Navalny aide Maria Pevchikh.
Pevchikh claimed that the West was ready to hand over FSB killer Vadim Krasikov, seen by Putin as a patriot, now in a Germany jail after he was convicted of an assassination.
But Putin - acting like a “mad mafioso” - decided he could not face having his arch-foe Navalny free, even if he was living in exile.
In a dramatic new twist on the Navalny story, London-based Pevchikh said: "Navalny was supposed to be free in the coming days because we had achieved a decision on his exchange.
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“In early February, Putin was offered to swap the FSB killer, Vadim Krasikov, who is serving time for murder in Berlin, for two American citizens - and Alexei Navalny.
“I received confirmation that negotiations were at the final stage on the evening of February 15. On February 16, Alexei was killed."
She added: “Roman Abramovich was the one who delivered the proposal to swap Navalny to Putin…as an informal negotiator communicating with American and European officials, and at the same time, representing Putin, an unofficial channel of communication with the Kremlin.”
Pevchikh alleges that "Putin was clearly told that the only way to get Krasikov was to exchange him for Navalny".
But, she continues, it was his sheer hatred for Navalny that stopped the deal from happening.
She claims that Putin couldn't tolerate Navalny being free, and having realised that the West was willing to exchange Krasikov, he got rid of the bargaining chip.
Pevchikh said: “It’s absolutely illogical, absolutely irrational, it's the behaviour of a mad mafioso.
“The point is that Putin has gone mad with hatred for Navalny. Putin hated him so much.”
Navalny was serving 19 years in hellhole Arctic jail Polar Wolf on trumped up charges intended to repress him.
Instead of freeing him, he had him killed, she alleges.
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Pevchikh said: “He acts to his own detriment and against his own rational interests.
“After all, Putin knows for sure that Alexei Navalny could have defeated him, that Alexei Navalny is the future, and he, Putin, is the past.”
She added: “I did ask Roman Abramovich, through mutual acquaintances, how, when, and under what circumstances he did this,[and] what Putin said [regarding an agreement to swap Navalny].
“Unfortunately, Abramovich did not answer these questions, but he did not deny anything either.”
Pevchikh's allegations join a long list of theories regarding Navalny's cause of death.
On the two-year anniversary of the war against Ukraine, top Ukrainian spy chief Lt Gen Budanov claimed that Navalny's cause of death was actually natural causes.
He said: "I may disappoint you, but what we know is that he really died from a blood clot.
"And this is more or less confirmed.
"This was not taken from the Internet, but, unfortunately, a natural [death]."
Meanwhile, grieving widow Yulia Navalnaya has accused Vladimir Putin of "torturing him dead".
She demanded: “Give us the body of my husband.
“You tortured him alive, and now you keep torturing him dead. You mock the remains of the dead.
“No true Christian could ever do what Putin is now doing with the body of Alexei."
Navalny's mum Lyudmila, 69, had originally been blocked from seeing her son's remains - with reports he was left battered and bruised.
It was only four days ago, six agonising days after her son's death, that Lyudmila was even shown her son's body.
The grieving mum claimed Russian officials were trying to blackmail her, and threatened to "do something" to the corpse.
The cruel tyrant asked Navalny's mum to choose between two alternatives: agree to a secret funeral in an undisclosed location or have her son's body forever entombed in the Polar Wolf jail.
"They want this to be done secretly, with no farewell. They want to bring me to the edge of a cemetery, to a fresh grave and say: here lies your son. I don't agree to this," she said in a YouTube video.
It was only after internal pressure, from Navalny's family and the Russian Orthodox church, mounted on Putin that the body has been released.
