According to a US official, Vladimir Putin most certainly did not arrange Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's killing
The official discussed the delicate subject while remaining anonymous.
According to a source familiar with the assessment, US intelligence authorities have concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin most likely did not order the execution of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was detained, in February.
Though US officials think that Putin ultimately bears some of the blame for Navalny's death—he suffered horrendous conditions during his detention—the intelligence community has discovered "no smoking gun" that suggests Putin knew or directly ordered Navalny's death to occur at a time close to the Russian president's reelection.
The official discussed the delicate subject while remaining anonymous.
US President Joe Biden said shortly after the Navalny's murder that Putin was ultimately to blame, although he refrained from accusing the Russian president of giving the order personally.
Biden said at the time that while the US was unsure of Navalny's specific circumstances, "there is no doubt" that his murder "was the consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did."
The most well-known opposition leader in Russia, 47-year-old Navalny, was Putin's most enduring adversary. He passed away on February 16 in a remote prison colony above the Arctic Circle while serving a 19-year sentence for extremism, which he denied having political motivations.
His return to Russia from Germany, where he was recuperating from nerve agent poisoning he attributed to the Kremlin, landed him behind prison in January 2021.
Russian authorities have strongly denied any participation in either Navalny's poisoning or his death, stating merely that he passed away from natural causes.
A month after Navalny's death, in March, Putin easily won reelection to a fifth term; the result was always certain.
First to report on the US intelligence decision was The Wall Street Journal.
