(Washington) American intelligence services consider that Vladimir Putin did not directly order the death of Russian opponent Alexeï Navalny in February, reports Saturday Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
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.
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 Mr. 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.
Asked by AFP, the White House National Security Council declined to comment on the article.
Western countries including the United States 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.
Main political enemy of the Kremlin, Alexeï Navalny died at the age of 47 on February 16 in murky circumstances, in a penitentiary 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.