US intelligence agencies believe that Vladimir Putin did not directly order the death of Russian adversary Alexei Navalny in February The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
The CIA and other intelligence agencies, according to the WSJ, which refers to anonymous sources familiar with the matter, believe that he did not order the death of the Kremlin’s main adversary “at the time.”
The conclusion received with caution by other Western intelligence services and contested by close allies of the deceased, the newspaper assures.
The “naive” American approach
Russian opponent Leonid Volkov called the American approach to the WSJ “naive”.
Those who say Putin didn’t know “obviously don’t understand anything about how Russia works today,” he said.
US agencies are drawing on both classified information and an analysis of public elements to reach this conclusion, which raises new questions about the circumstances of Alexei Navalny’s death in an isolated prison in the Arctic.
Among the elements being taken into account: the fact that the death occurred in the middle of the campaign for Russia’s presidential election in March.
The White House’s National Security Council declined to comment on the article when asked by AFP.
Western countries, including the United States, believe that the Russian president is “responsible” for the death of Russia’s adversary. “Make no mistake, Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death,” Joe Biden said in February.
The main political enemy of the Kremlin, Alexei Navalny, died at the age of 47 on February 16 under unclear circumstances in a prison in the Arctic, where he was subjected to particularly harsh conditions of detention.
Russian authorities claimed he died of natural causes, but the opponent’s relatives accuse them of murder.