Putin likely didn’t order death of Russian opposition leader Navalny, US official says

WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely did not order the killing of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February, according to an official familiar with the determination.

While US officials believe that Putin was ultimately responsible for the death of Navalny, who suffered brutal conditions during his captivity, the intelligence community has discovered that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny’s death – which occurred shortly before of the Russian president took place. re-election — or directly ordered it, the official said.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.

Shortly after Navalny’s death, US President Joe Biden said Putin was ultimately responsible, but did not accuse the Russian president of directly ordering it.

Biden said at the time that the US did not know exactly what happened to Navalny, but that “there is no doubt” that his death “was the result of something that Putin and his thugs did.”

Navalny, 47, Russia’s best-known opposition politician and Putin’s most persistent enemy, died on February 16 in a remote penal colony above the Arctic Circle while serving a 19-year prison sentence on extremism charges that he dismissed as politically motivated.

He had been behind bars since January 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he was recovering from a nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.

Russian officials have said only that Navalny died of natural causes and have vehemently denied involvement in the poisoning as well as in his death.

In March, a month after Navalny’s death, Putin won a landslide re-election to a fifth term, an outcome that was never in doubt.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the US intelligence services’ finding.