Wall Street Journal: US intelligence suggests that Putin didn’t give orders to kill Navalny

US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn’t order the killing of opposition politician Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison in February, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

Navalny, who died aged 47, was one of Putin’s harshest critics at home.

His allies, whom the authorities describe as extremists, accused Putin of killing him and said they would provide evidence to support their accusations.

The Kremlin denied any state involvement in his death.

Last month, Putin described Navalny’s death as sad and said he was willing to hand over the jailed politician to the West in a prisoner exchange on the condition that Navalny never returns to Russia.

Navalny’s allies said that talks in this regard were ongoing.

The Wall Street Journal newspaper, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, said on Saturday that US intelligence agencies had concluded that Putin likely didn’t order the killing of Navalny.

However, the Wall Street Journal added that Washington hadn’t generally absolved the Russian leader of responsibility for Navalny’s death, given that Russian authorities had targeted the opposition politician for years and imprisoned him on charges the West said were politically motivated.

He was also poisoned in 2020 with a nerve agent, but the Kremlin denied state involvement in that incident.

The Wall Street Journal quoted some of its sources as saying that the US assessment was based on a set of information, including some secret intelligence information and analysis of general facts such as the timing of Navalny’s death and how it cast a shadow on Putin’s victory in the presidential elections in March.

However, Leonid Volkov, a senior aide to Navalny, described the US results as naive and ridiculous, according to the Wall Street Journal.