US Official: Putin Likely Did Not Order Death of Opposition Leader Navalny

(Patria) - US intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely did not order the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February, according to an official, AP reported.

While US officials believe Putin is responsible for the death of Navalny, who suffered brutal conditions during his imprisonment, the intelligence community found that Putin was either unaware of the timing of Navalny's death, which occurred before the presidential election, or did not directly order it, according to the official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

Shortly after Navalny's death, US President Joe Biden said Putin was responsible, but did not accuse the Russian president of directly ordering it. Biden said at the time that the US did not know exactly what happened to Navalny, but that there was "no doubt" that his death "was the result of something Putin and his thugs did".

Navalny (47), the most prominent Russian opposition politician and Putin's most persistent enemy, died on February 16 in a remote penal colony above the Arctic Circle while serving a nineteen-year sentence for extremism charges he dismissed as politically motivated. He had been behind bars since January 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he was recovering from a nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin.

Russian officials have only said that Navalny died of natural causes and have sharply denied involvement in both the poisoning and his death.