In a surprising turn, The Wall Street Journal has issued a new weekend report saying that US intelligence agencies do not believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin planned or ordered the death of opposition activist and politician Alexei Navalny.
“U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that Putin likely didn’t order Navalny to be killed at the notoriously brutal prison camp in February, people familiar with the matter said, a finding that deepens the mystery about the circumstances of his death,” writes the Journal.
“The assessment doesn’t dispute Putin’s culpability for Navalny’s death, but rather finds he probably didn’t order it at that moment,” WSJ continues. “The finding is broadly accepted within the intelligence community and shared by several agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the State Department’s intelligence unit, the people said.”
And yet it must be recalled that Western officials and media pundits alike had immediately upon reports of the 47-year old Navalny’s death rushed to declare that he had been ‘assassinated’ by Russian authorities upon Putin’s order.
This led to a new wave of US-led sanctions on Russia, and even disrupted momentum toward a hoped-for prisoner swap between Moscow and Kiev at the time.
President Biden had asserted in a statement issued on the very day of his Feb.16 death that “Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death” and that it was “proof of Putin’s Brutality” – but ultimately that the ‘democratic future’ Navalny believed in was worth “dying for” – according to the president’s words at the time.
Russian prison authorities had officially listed his demise as from “sudden death syndrome,” which is how natural causes such as heart attacks are typically described.
Navalny’s team is not happy with the fresh WSJ report which is being seen as essentially an exoneration of Putin:
In a statement to the Journal, Leonid Volkov, a longtime Navalny ally, rejected the U.S. intelligence assessment and said those who assert that Putin wasn’t aware of Navalny’s death “clearly do not understand anything about how modern day Russia runs.”
“The idea of Putin being not informed and not approving killing Navalny is ridiculous,” he said.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Below, journalist and geopolitical commentator Aaron Maté explains that despite news of Navalny’s life and death having driven world headlines, he was still largely an unknown within broader Russian politics and society especially on a national level [emphasis ZH].
* * *
Navalny was a marginal opposition figure who polled at around 2%. Putin didn’t fear him; it served Putin to have him seen in the West as his main opposition.
The Russian gov’t meanwhile has just barred anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin. A Russian court has also issued a draconian prison sentence to anti-war sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky. We don’t hear about people like Nadezhdin and Kagarlitsky in the West nearly as much for one reason: unlike Navalny, they don’t collaborate with Western governments.
Navalny worked with NATO intel cutout Bellingcat and went through the “Yale World Fellow” program, a regime change training ground. For this reason, we also don’t hear that Navalny was an unrepentant xenophobe who compared Muslim immigrants to cockroaches and rotten teeth.
His death is a tragedy. He was undoubtedly mistreated. But because he served US interests, US state media will make him into someone he was not. And just compare their fawning coverage to their silence on, or even support for, the ongoing persecution of Julian Assange. Or their complete silence on the mistreatment and death of US citizen Gonzalo Lira in Ukrainian custody — universally ignored in US media.
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I never thought Putin did. Yet the treatment in prison, and even more the Siberian prison camp were most likely the cause, meaning Putin didn’t need to order his killing. Russian prison camps are notorious for their physical beatings. Beatings can certainly cause internal bleeding, which can cause blood clots that will kill you. A bit over zealous prison guards were probably the cause of his death.
Of course, being fully vaxxed with western Vs had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Hard to say, both are possibilities, so is natural causes. My daughter almost died of a double pulmonary embolism at 40, years before the vaxx.
lol you think there is such a thing as ‘western’ clotshots
It’s possible western intelligence agencies had Navalny killed in order to dislodge funding for Ukraine. I have no problem with his opposition to Islam.
Sounds like the Feds are trying to gain back some cred using a limited hangout.
I doubt it’ll work on anyone. Mostly nobody cares.
So Buydem states “Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death”
So does that mean buydem is responsible for Liras death, the deaths of J6’rs and all the deaths that illegals have committed on usausa citizens!?!? ax’n fo a fren…
The minute I heard of his death I immediately suspected the Western Intelligence services…wonder why.
Assuming there is a difference between intelligence services.
They may have made common cause. Wars don’t stop that kind of cooperation.
At a microcosmic level, I think of the way it has worked in the Donbass at least in the last decade. Everyone not in the club is the target.
But of course, all the various statements government at all levels makes are to be taken as indubitable, esoterically sound in all dimensions and thracipsyoneuronic in every element, earth, air, fire and water.
Naturally.
Of course.
By all means.