US intelligence agencies have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely did not order the murder of political opponent Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison in February, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Saturday.
Navalny, who has died aged 47, was Putin’s main domestic critic. His allies, labeled extremists by authorities, accused Putin of having murdered him and said they would present evidence to substantiate the claim.
The Kremlin has denied any state involvement. Last month, Putin said Navalny’s death was “sad” and claimed he was ready to hand the jailed politician over to the West in a prisoner exchange if Navalny never returned to Russia. According to Navalny’s allies, these negotiations were ongoing.
According to the report, citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the matter, Washington did not, however, absolve the Russian leader of responsibility for Navalny’s death because the opposition politician was a target of Russian authorities for years, detained on charges that, in the opinion of the West, were politically motivated, and was poisoned in 2020 with a nerve agent.
The Kremlin denies state involvement in the 2020 poisoning.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Saturday he had seen the Wall Street Journal report which he said contained “empty speculation.”
Reuters was unable to independently verify the Journal report, which cited sources as saying the conclusion was “widely accepted in 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 newspaper quoted Leonid Volkov, a senior adviser to Navalny, as saying the US conclusions were naive and ridiculous.
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