U.S. intelligence agencies are saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin might not have planned for Alexei Navalny to die when he did, according to a new report.
The Wall Street Journal said that U.S. agencies believe Putin probably didn’t give the order for Navalny to be killed in February, but it doesn’t completely let him off the hook.
Officials at the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the State Department’s intelligence unit have all agreed on this.
Navalny was a Russian opposition leader known for fighting corruption and Putin. His death at 47 in a remote Arctic penal colony shocked the world, and many blamed Putin right away.
The Russian Federal Prison Service said Navalny felt sick after a walk and passed out. An ambulance came, but they couldn’t save him.
Navalny had been in prison since 2021 when he returned to Russia after being poisoned, which he said Putin did. Putin denied it.
Leonid Volkov, a longtime ally of Navalny, disagreed with the U.S. intelligence assessment. He said those who think Putin didn’t know about Navalny’s death “clearly do not understand anything about how modern-day Russia runs.”
The Journal said the U.S. intelligence assessment looked at a mix of information, including secret intelligence, public facts, and how Navalny’s death affected Putin’s reelection.
The sources didn’t say if the U.S. figured out how Navalny died, but it was reported that he died from “sudden death syndrome,” which is a general term for various heart problems.
