MOSCOW, March 18 – Russian President Vladimir Putin said he had agreed to a prisoner swap involving opposition leader Alexei Navalny before his death in prison last month and said it was sad when someone died.
Putin said the main condition for the exchange was that Navalny would not return to Russia. Navalny was Putin’s fiercest domestic opponent. His allies accuse Putin of having him murdered, something the Kremlin denies.
His comments came after he won a record post-Soviet landslide in Russia’s election on Sunday, cementing his grip on power though thousands of opponents staged a noon protest at polling stations and the United States said the vote was neither free nor fair.
Supporters of Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison last month, had called on Russians to come out at a “Noon against Putin” protest to show their dissent against a leader they describe as a corrupt autocrat.
There was no independent tally of how many of Russia’s 114 million voters took part in the opposition demonstrations, amid tight security involving tens of thousands of police and security officials.
Putin said that the election protest against him organized by the opposition had no effect, but that people who had prevented other people voting by acts of vandalism should be punished.
Reuters journalists saw an increase in the flow of voters, especially younger people, at noon at polling stations in Moscow, St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, with queues of several hundred people and even thousands.
Some said they were protesting, though there were few outward signs to distinguish them from ordinary voters.
Exiled Navalny supporters broadcast footage on YouTube of protests inside Russia and abroad.
“We showed ourselves, all of Russia and the whole world that Putin is not Russia (and) that Putin has seized power in Russia,” said Ruslan Shaveddinov of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. “Our victory is that we, the people, defeated fear, we defeated solitude – many people saw they were not alone.”
At least 74 people were arrested on Sunday across Russia, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors crackdowns on dissent.
Over the previous two days, there were scattered incidents of protest as some Russians set fire to voting booths or poured green dye into ballot boxes. Opponents posted some pictures of ballots spoiled with slogans insulting Putin.