Shock twist as Alexei Navalny ‘died of blood clot and wasn’t murdered by Putin’, claims Ukraine’s top spy 

ALEXEI Navalny may have died from natural causes, a Ukrainian spy chief has claimed.

Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's formidable GUR military intelligence service, appeared to pour cold water on claims Navalny, 47, was murdered

 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny may have died from natural causesCredit: AP  

The anti-corruption campaigner was found dead in a Russian gulag this month sparking claims he'd been killed on Putin's orders.

He was serving a 19-year prison sentence in a the arctic Polar Wolf penal colony.

Lativan President Edgar Rinkevich said: “Whatever you think about Alexei Navalny, as a politician he was just brutally murdered by the Kremlin."

But speaking at the sidelines of a major press conference in Kyiv, to mark two years Russia invaded Ukraine, Lt Gen Budanov said Navalny's cause of death was "more or less confirmed". 

He said: "I may disappoint you, but what we know is that he really died from a blood clot.

"And this is more or less confirmed.

"This was not taken from the Internet, but, unfortunately, a natural [death]."

Prison authorities had refused to release Navalny's body for more than a week after he died.

His grieving widow Yulia Navalnaya accused Vladimir Putin of "torturing him dead".

She demanded: “Give us the body of my husband.

“You tortured him alive, and now you keep torturing him dead. You mock the remains of the dead.

“No true Christian could ever do what Putin is now doing with the body of Alexei."

Navalny's mum Lyudmila, 69, had originally been blocked from seeing her son's remains - with reports he was left battered and bruised.

It was only two days ago, six agonising days after her son's death, that Lyudmila was even shown her son's body. 

The grieving mum claimed Russian officials were trying to blackmail her, and threatened to "do something" to the corpse.

The cruel tyrant asked Navalny's mum to choose between two alternatives: agree to a secret funeral in an undisclosed location or have her son's body forever entombed in the Polar Wolf jail.

"They want this to be done secretly, with no farewell. They want to bring me to the edge of a cemetery, to a fresh grave and say: here lies your son. I don't agree to this," she said in a YouTube video.

It was only after internal pressure, from Navalny's family and the Russian Orthodox church, mounted on Putin that the body has been released. 

Vladimir Putin's staunchest critic is believed to have been murdered at the Polar Wolf penal colony where he was jailed on trumped-up charges.

According to Navalny's team, Russian officials have denied these allegations - claiming instead that he had died of "natural causes".

On February 17, Navalny's mother and his lawyer were informed he had died of "sudden death syndrome".

It has since emerged that hospital staff in Salekhard found a collection of bruises on Navalny's body when he arrived.

Reference: The Sun