It remains unclear why they reached this conclusion and leaked it despite being in positions of authority to launder the lie that President Putin ordered Navalny’s death, which would have let them score easy soft power points against Russia.
The Wall Street Journal cited unnamed people familiar with the matter to report that the CIA, the National Directorate of Intelligence, and the State Department’s intelligence unit, among other US spy agencies, concluded that President Putin didn’t order Navalny’s death earlier this year. They still believe that he’s culpable since the US’ view is that he was wrongly imprisoned and lacked adequate medical care, but this disclosure still throws a wrench in the West’s information warfare operations.
Objective observers were already aware that “Putin Had No Reason To Kill Navalny But The West Has Every Reason To Lie That He Did”, with the first being due to the fact that he posed no threat to the Russian leader from behind bars while the second was attributable to their interest in smearing him. The West also wanted to reduce turnout during March’s presidential elections and pressure Congress into breaking its deadlock on Ukraine aid. Now that neither is relevant anymore, the truth is coming out.
President Putin revealed during his re-election speech that he had actually approved swapping Navalny for unnamed Russian prisoners being held by the West before that convicted non-systemic opposition leader’s untimely demise that Ukrainian military-intelligence chief Budanov blamed on a blood clot. Even so, many anti-Russian activists in the West refused to believe either of those two, and this was in spite of them previously treating the latter’s words as gospel.
It remains unclear why US spy agencies reportedly concluded that the Russian leader didn’t order Navalny’s death despite being in positions of authority to launder this lie for easy soft power points against his country. One possible reason is that his public confirmation that he was about to be swapped made it difficult for them to cling to that story since it truly doesn’t make sense why President Putin would approve of that only to then turn around and kill him.
In other words, they couldn’t lend false credence to the initial narrative that he was responsible if they wanted to retain a semblance of credibility, though the consequence of doing so was that Biden was made to look like a fool after their boss claimed that “Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death.” Everyone interpreted that to mean that he ordered it, but their new caveat appears to be that he created the conditions for him to pass away prematurely from a medical issue, thus helping Biden “save face” a bit.
Nevertheless, many anti-Russian activists still can’t accept those spy agencies’ reported conclusion since it contradicts their secular cult’s dogma, namely that President Putin is personally responsible for every bad thing that happens to any non-systemic opposition member. It’s a matter of faith for them to believe this since failing to do so could lead to the unraveling of their entire movement. They therefore delusionally insist that they know him better than the entire American Intelligence Community does.
As two cases in point, the Wall Street Journal cited Russian-designated foreign agent Leonid Volkov (a member of the non-systemic opposition) and Polish think tank expert Slawomir Debski, who both claimed that Navalny was killed at President Putin’s orders or at least with his tacit approval in advance. By divorcing themselves more and more from reality, they’re further discrediting the West’s information warfare operations, which works to Russia’s cynical benefit in the soft power sense.
Well, that's interesting. Perhaps they have a prisoner swap they still really want to make and don't want to piss Putin off too much. Or something else they will need Putin's cooperation on. Or payback for helping make the Iranian counterstrike just a great light show if Seymour Hersh is correct about Russian cooperation.
"It remains unclear why they reached this conclusion and leaked it..."
Seems pretty clear to me: they're realised the extent to which the narratives they've been pushing are just so obviously ridiculous, they're going to have to start back-pedalling somehow, somewhere, and this seems a pretty good place to start. Duh! (Not you , them — superDUH — a bit late now (but better late than never, I suppose.))
"...he posed no threat to the Russian leader..."
Being a wannabe stooge, as he was, he never posed any threat to anyone. Regardless how much colour revolution money they threw at it, and accolades he got from Yale or any other such Ivy League centre of progressive intellectual dynamism, there was never any real hope of him attaining any real success in Russia. He'd had all the faux-success he was going to get when he made the Russians aware of him with attempts to manipulate the mayoral elections in Moscow. It wasn't going to get any better for him than that. Actually, that might not be quite right: I think he did also enjoy some degree of 'protest-vote-for-wannabe-stooge' success with Soros money throughout Russia with similar manipulations of a nationwide poll, didn't he? Those were the days! I'm sure 'Putin', as they say in the West, was all trembling terrified (NOT)!
"...approved swapping Navalny for unnamed Russian prisoners being held by the West..."
Yeah, it's a damn shame that didn't pan out: could have put that nonsense about the Jew Yourk Times spys not spying, and being inappropriately arrested (and prosecuted) to bed.
"...it truly doesn’t make sense why President Putin would approve of that only to then turn around and kill him."
That would make it a natural place for a spot of backpedalling, then, wouldn't it?
"...they couldn’t lend false credence to the initial narrative that he was responsible if they wanted to retain a semblance of credibility..."
Yep, that's a real natural, alright!
"...Biden was made to look like a fool..."
Hey, you take the best from what you've got and make the best of it.
How would you suggest it might be possible to avoid making Biden, and all the rest of his Moron McCain-type buddies, looking like what they are? You can fool some of the people some of the time but you can't pull the wool over everyone's eyes forever. When you get a break like manna from heaven to start quietly back-pedalling, you grab it with both hands, like the JYT, shut the fuck up, and get on with it.
"...anti-Russian activists still can’t accept..."
Born a moron, die a moron: there will probably always be some of the McCain mentality who insist on pulling the American flag into their grave with them.
"...they’re further discrediting the West’s information warfare operations..."
Hence the need to find a good place to start back-pedalling: the longer it's put off, the more of everything will get pulled into the moron mentality's grave.