The news is surprising. According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), American intelligence services consider that Russian President Vladimir Putin did not directly order the death of his opponent Alexeï Navalny, who died last February.
Indeed, the CIA and other intelligence agencies believe that the Russian president did not order “at that time” the death of the Kremlin’s main opponent, according to the WSJ, which cites anonymous sources familiar with the matter.
Light justifications according to those close to Navalny
A conclusion received with caution by other Western intelligence services and contested by close allies of the deceased, assures the daily. Russian opponent Leonid Volkov described the American approach to the WSJ as “naive”.
Those who say Vladimir Putin didn’t know “clearly don’t understand anything about how Russia works today,” he said.
American agencies are based both on classified information and on the analysis of public elements to reach this conclusion which raises new questions about the circumstances of the death of Alexeï Navalny in an isolated prison in the Arctic. Among the elements taken into account: the fact that this death occurred in the middle of the electoral campaign for the Russian presidential election in March.
Putin “responsible” according to Western allies
Asked by AFP, the White House National Security Council declined to comment on the article.
However, Western countries, including the United States administration, consider that the Russian president is “responsible” for the death of the Russian opponent. “Make no mistake, Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death,” Joe Biden said in February.
The Kremlin’s main political enemy, Alexeï Navalny, died at the age of 47 on February 16 in murky circumstances, in a penal establishment 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.