U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin probably didn\u2019t order opposition politician Alexei Navalny killed at an Arctic prison camp in February, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
\nNavalny, 47 when he died, was Putin\u2019s fiercest domestic critic. His allies, branded extremists by the authorities, accused Putin of having him murdered and have said they will provide proof to back their allegation.
\nThe Kremlin has denied any state involvement. Last month, Putin called Navalny\u2019s demise \u201csad\u201d and said he had been ready to hand the jailed politician over to the West in a prisoner exchange provided Navalny never return to Russia. Navalny\u2019s allies said such talks had been under way.
\nThe Journal, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, said on Saturday that U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded that Putin probably didn\u2019t order Navalny to be killed in February.
\nIt said Washington had not absolved the Russian leader of overall responsibility for Navalny\u2019s death however, given the opposition politician had been targeted by Russian authorities for years, jailed on charges the West said were politically motivated, and had been poisoned in 2020 with a nerve agent.
\nThe Kremlin denies state involvement in the 2020 poisoning.
\nReuters could not independently verify the Journal report, which cited sources as saying the finding had been \u201cbroadly accepted within the intelligence community and shared by several agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the State Department\u2019s intelligence unit.\u201d
\nThe U.S. assessment was based on a range of information, including some classified intelligence, and an analysis of public facts, including the timing of Navalny\u2019s death and how it overshadowed Putin\u2019s re-election in March, the paper cited some of its sources as saying.
\nIt cited Leonid Volkov, a senior Navalny aide, as calling the U.S. findings naive and ridiculous.
\n(Reuters)Navalny’s Death. intelligence agencies, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Alexei Navalny<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin probably did not order the killing of opposition politician Alexei Navalny at an Arctic prison camp in February. Putin denied state involvement and had considered exchanging Navalny with the West. The U.S. assessment, based on classified intelligence and public facts, did not absolve Putin of overall responsibility for Navalny’s death, given the history of targeting Navalny by Russian authorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6036,6393,7667,3894,2460,2692,1600,2515,658,8104,1837,6093,3419,7776,887,2880,4593,1200,4843,131,678,154,2342,4620,5515,19,5421,8105,7967,1026,8087,173,1357,255,3519,18],"class_list":["post-9869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","tag-alexei-navalny","tag-analysis","tag-assessment","tag-charges","tag-community","tag-death","tag-election","tag-february","tag-history","tag-intelligence-agencies","tag-involvement","tag-jailed","tag-kremlin","tag-march","tag-navalny","tag-navalnys-death","tag-office","tag-poisoning","tag-president","tag-prison","tag-prisoner","tag-putin","tag-re-election","tag-report","tag-responsibility","tag-russia","tag-russian-authorities","tag-russian-president-vladimir-putin","tag-state","tag-talks","tag-u-s-intelligence","tag-usa","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-wall-street","tag-washington","tag-world"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\n