The Wall Street Journal’s report has it that on Saturday, U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that it’s unlikely Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the killing of opposition politician Alexei Navalny at an Arctic prison camp in February.
Navalny, aged 47 at the time of his death, was known as Putin’s most vocal domestic critic. Despite being labeled as extremists by the authorities, his allies have accused Putin of orchestrating his murder and pledged to provide evidence to support their claim.
The Kremlin has consistently denied any state involvement. Last month, Putin described Navalny’s death as “sad” and stated he had been willing to exchange the jailed politician with the West, on the condition that Navalny never returned to Russia. Navalny’s allies claim negotiations toward such an exchange were in progress.
The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, stated that U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded that Putin probably did not order Navalny’s killing in February.
However, Washington has not absolved Putin of overall responsibility for Navalny’s death, given that the opposition politician had been a target of Russian authorities for years, was imprisoned on charges deemed politically motivated by the West, and had been poisoned with a nerve agent in 2020.
The Kremlin has repeatedly denied any state involvement in the 2020 poisoning incident.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday he had seen the Journal’s report, which he said contained “empty speculation”.
“I’ve seen the material, I wouldn’t say it’s high quality material that deserves attention,” Peskov told reporters when asked about the matter.
Reuters could not independently verify the Journal report, which cited sources as saying the finding had been “broadly 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’s intelligence unit.”
According to the paper’s sources, the U.S. assessment drew upon a variety of information, including classified intelligence, and an examination of public events, such as the timing of Navalny’s death coinciding with Putin’s re-election in March.
Leonid Volkov, a senior aide to Navalny, dismissed the U.S. findings as naive and ridiculous, as reported by the paper.