Floral tributes, portraits of late Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny and messages are found still left outside the previous Russian Embassy in Tbilisi on March 1, 2024.
Vano Shlamov | AFP | Getty Visuals
U.S. intelligence organizations have concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin probably did not straight purchase the killing of Alexei Navalny at a distant penal colony in February, in accordance to 3 sources acquainted with the subject. But the precise situations of the opposition leader’s loss of life at the Arctic prison stay unclear.
The evaluation does not absolve Putin of supreme accountability for Navalny’s fate, only that the Russian president most likely did not contact for his killing at that time, the resources claimed. By sending Navalny to the infamous high-security penal colony in a distant town earlier mentioned the Arctic Circle, the Kremlin had successfully imposed a death sentence on the opposition leader, the resources stated.
The conclusions mirrored a broad consensus across various intelligence agencies, the resources mentioned.
The Wall Road Journal was 1st to report the intelligence community’s evaluation.
Following Navalny’s demise, President Joe Biden said that when Washington lacked information and facts on the correct situations, “there is no doubt that the death of Navalny was a consequence of a little something Putin and his thugs did.”
Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Company mentioned in a assertion at the time that Navalny had died after experience unwell following a wander.
The CIA and the Business office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.
Navalny was 47 when he died and was serving a mixed 30 ½-year jail sentence. As Russia’s most higher-profile and well-known dissident, Navalny’s loss of life dealt a intense blow to the country’s opposition movement, which has been brutally suppressed by the Kremlin.
All through a organization excursion in Russia in 2020, Navalny was poisoned with a military nerve agent, Novichok. Navalny and Western officials blamed the endeavor on Navalny’s lifestyle on Putin.
The poison applied on Navalny was identical to the 1 the Russian army intelligence service utilized in opposition to a retired Russian military intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal, in a 2018 assassination attempt in the United Kingdom, in accordance to Western governments.
Russia has denied the governing administration was involved in Navalny’s poisoning in 2020 or his loss of life in prison in February.
Prior to Navalny’s loss of life, there had been tentative discussions about a doable prisoner trade with Russia involving Navalny and People detained in Russia, NBC News beforehand claimed.
Navalny’s allies allege that Putin experienced the dissident killed to thwart the proposed prisoner swap that would have freed him.
Russia has denied the accusation.