US intelligence agencies have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin probably did not order the killing of opposition politician Alexei Navalny in a prison in the Arctic in February, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Navalny, who was 47 when he died, was Putin's fiercest domestic critic.
His aides, labeled extremists by authorities, accused Putin of killing him and said they would provide evidence to support their claim.
The Kremlin has denied any state involvement.
Last month, Putin called Navalny's death "deplorable", noting that he was prepared to hand over the jailed politician to the West in a prisoner exchange on the condition that Navalny never return to Russia.
Navalny's associates said that such negotiations had taken place.
The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, reported on Saturday that US intelligence agencies had concluded that Putin probably did not order Navalny's killing in February.
However, Washington did not absolve the Russian leader of overall responsibility for Navalny's death, taking into account that Navalny was targeted by the Russian authorities for years, that he was imprisoned on politically motivated charges, and that he was poisoned in 2020 with a nerve agent.
The Kremlin denies state involvement in the poisoning of Navalny in 2020.
Reuters could not independently verify the Wall Street Journal's report, which cited sources as saying the assessment was "widely accepted within the intelligence community and shared by several agencies, including the CIA, the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence and State Department intelligence." ".
The US assessment is based on a range of information, including some classified intelligence and an analysis of publicly available data, including the timing of Navalny's death and the fact that it overshadowed Putin's re-election in March, The Wall Street Journal said, citing some of its sources.
One of Navalny's main collaborators, Leonid Volkov, assessed the aforementioned theses as naive and ridiculous, reports Hina.
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