(Bloomberg) -- US intelligence agencies have found that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn’t order opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s death at a prison camp in February, the Wall Street Journal reported.

While the assessment didn’t dispute Putin’s culpability for the death, it found that the timing possibly wasn’t as intended by Putin, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. 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, according to the report.

The mysterious death of Navalny, an anti-corruption activist and Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, at an Arctic prison in February triggered a fresh round of tensions between Russia and the West at a time relations were fractured by the Ukraine conflict.

The death also sparked the biggest unauthorized protests since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. US President Joe Biden and other leaders have held the Russian leader ultimately at fault based on years of the Kremlin’s targeting of Navalny.

Read More: Why Alexey Navalny Was Putin’s Domestic Enemy No. 1: QuickTake

The latest assessment was based on a range of information such as classified intelligence and an analysis of public facts, including the timing of his death and how it overshadowed Putin’s re-election, the WSJ report said. Some European intelligence agencies have been told of the latest US view, it said.

Navalny fell sick during a walk at the remote maximum-security prison camp in the Arctic where he was last held, and medical staff were unable to revive him, the prison authorities said on Feb. 16. 

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