Vladimir Putin unlikely to have ordered death of Alexei Navalny, US official says

Washington: US intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to have ordered the death of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February, according to an official familiar with the determination.

While US officials believe Putin was ultimately responsible for the death of Navalny, who endured brutal conditions during his confinement, the intelligence community has found “no smoking gun” that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny’s death – which came soon before the Russian president’s re-election – or directly ordered it, according to the official.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny shows a heart symbol while standing in a cage for defendants in Moscow in 2021.Credit: AP

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

Soon after Navalny’s death, US President Joe Biden said Putin was ultimately responsible but did not accuse the Russian president of directly ordering it.

At the time, Biden said the US did not know exactly what had happened to Navalny but that “there is no doubt” that his death “was the consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did”.

Navalny, 47, Russia’s best-known opposition politician and Putin’s most persistent foe, died on February 16 in a remote penal colony above the Arctic Circle while serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges that he rejected as politically motivated.

Russian journalist Konstantin Gabov attends a hearing at a court in Moscow.Credit: AP

He had been behind bars since January 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.

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

In March, a month after Navalny’s death, Putin won a landslide reelection for a fifth term, an outcome that was never in doubt.

The Wall Street Journal first reported about the US intelligence determination.

Russian journalist Sergey Karelin appears in court in the Murmansk region of Russia.Credit: AP

Separately, courts in Russia accused two journalists of taking part in the activities of an “extremist” organisation founded by Navalny.

Courts placed Konstantin Gabov and Sergey Karelin in pretrial detention for two months on Saturday after state prosecutors made the accusation.

It did not provide further details. A spokeswoman for the Navalny movement did not respond to a request for comment.

Neither Gabov nor his lawyer could be reached for comment.

Video journalist Karelin, who previously worked for the Associated Press among others and has dual citizenship with Israel, was detained in Russia’s northern Murmansk region on Friday, AP reported.

AP said in a statement that it was “very concerned” by his detention, and added: “We are seeking additional information.”

Karelin, like Gabov, is accused of preparing videos for the Navalny Live YouTube channel. Karelin could not be reached for comment.

Gabov was shown on video footage pacing a courtroom cage with his arms folded.

He recently worked for various foreign and Russian news outlets, including Reuters and German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

Gabov will remain in pretrial detention until June 27, the statement, released via the official Telegram channel for the Russian capital’s courts, said.

The charge both men are accused of carries a jail sentence of up to six years.

Unverified video circulated on Telegram showed two law enforcement officers bursting into Gabov’s apartment with automatic rifles, shouting at him to get on the floor.

The Moscow court statement noted that Russian authorities have designated the Anti-Corruption Foundation, the organisation run by Navalny’s allies which broadcasts on the YouTube channel from outside Russia, as a “foreign agent” and as an extremist organisation whose activities are outlawed inside Russia.

The same statement described Gabov as a producer for the Reuters news agency.

Reuters said in its own statement: “Gabov is a freelance journalist who in the past occasionally contributed to the Reuters news file. He does not do any work for Reuters at this time.”

“Journalists must be free to report the news in the public interest without harassment or harm, wherever they are,” Reuters said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin last week.Credit: AP

German broadcaster Deutsche Welle said in a story on its website that he had worked as its correspondent in Moscow. Deutsche Welle’s press office did not reply to a request for comment.

Russian media reported that during a search of his apartment, a letter dated April 11 of this year was found, confirming that Gabov had worked with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)’s Current Time network since July 1, 2022.

Prague-based RFE, which is funded by the US Congress and is itself designated “a foreign agent” by Russia on the grounds it gets foreign funding for activity Moscow deems political, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

RFE says on its website that its mission is to promote democratic values by reporting uncensored news “in countries where a free press is threatened and disinformation is pervasive”.

The Russian police did not respond to a request for comment.

A third journalist, Sergei Mingazov, who works for the Russian edition of Forbes, was placed under house arrest on Saturday, the RIA state news agency reported. Mingazov was detained on Friday on suspicion of spreading false information about the Russian army, his magazine said on Friday.

Forbes said it had been unable to contact him after his phone and computer were seized, and did not say how he had pleaded.

Russian authorities have banned Navalny’s movement as extremist, casting the late politician as a US-backed troublemaker out to foment revolution in order to destabilise Russia.

Many Russian journalists working for non-state outlets fled the country after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and introduced tough new laws that mandated jail terms for people deemed to have discredited the Russian army or for distributing what the authorities regard as fake news about the military.

AP, Reuters

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