The death of Alexei Navalny
April 27, 2024
08:45
Alexei Navalny’s death was probably not directly ordered by President Vladimir Putin: this is the conclusion that American intelligence would have reached.
Vladimir Putin “did not directly order” oppositionist Alexei Navalny to be killed last February in the maximum security prison where he was held. To support him US intelligence agencies according to what the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) writes, citing “people familiar with the facts”. “The assessment does not dispute Putin’s responsibility” for what happened, “but rather believes that he probably wasn’t the one who ordered it at that time“, we read in the newspaper.
And it is underlined that the consideration “is widely accepted within the intelligence community and shared by several agencies, including the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the intelligence unit of the State Department”, the sources said.
The Wall Street Journal also reports that some European intelligence agencies have been informed of the US assessment of the matter. The newspaper therefore admits that it was not possible to determine whether intelligence agencies had developed alternative explanations for Navalny’s death in prison.
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Despite the suspicious circumstances of the death of the Russian dissident, therefore, the WSJ reported that several US intelligence agencies share the thesis according to which the timing of Navalny’s death was not specifically desired by the Kremlin leader. The newspaper, however, points out that Polish analysts and some European agencies remain skeptical that the president was uninvolved in the matter, while Navalny’s allies continue to insist that Putin is responsible.
Navalny’s death dates back to last February: the Russian president returned to pronouncing the dissident’s name in public after years about a month later, following the Russian presidential victory. On that occasion, Putin called Navalny’s death “a sad event” and also said he had approved the exchange of the opposition leader days before he died in an Arctic prison.
“A few days before Mr. Navalny died, some colleagues had told me that there was an idea to exchange Mr. Navalny with some people who were in prison in Western countries. I said I agree. But unfortunately what is happened happened.”
