Navalny, who was Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, collapsed and died in February 2024 after a walk at a penal colony.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died after he was allegedly poisoned by the Kremlin with the toxin from a poison dart frog, according to a joint statement by five European countries on Feb. 14.
The UK, Sweden, France, Germany, and the Netherlands announced their findings on Saturday after an analysis of samples from Navalny allegedly showed there was a presence of epibatidine in his system.
Epibatidine is a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America and is not naturally found in Russia.
“I was certain from the first day that my husband had been poisoned, but now there is proof: Putin killed Alexei with [a] chemical weapon,” Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya wrote in a Feb. 14 post on X.
“I am grateful to the European states for the meticulous work they carried out over two years and for uncovering the truth. Vladimir Putin is a murderer. He must be held accountable for all his crimes.”
Navalny, who was Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, collapsed and died in February 2024 after a walk at a penal colony 1,200 miles east of Moscow in the Arctic Circle, where he was serving a 19-year sentence, according to a Russian prison official.
“Given the toxicity of epibatidine and reported symptoms, poisoning was highly likely the cause of his death,” Saturday’s joint statement alleged.
The findings go against Russia’s claim that Navalny died of natural causes.
“I may disappoint you, but as far as we know, he indeed died as a result of a blood clot. And this has been more or less confirmed,” Kyrylo Budanov, chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, told reporters on Feb. 25, as quoted by Kyiv Post.
“This wasn’t sourced from the internet, but, unfortunately, natural [causes],” he added.
European leaders suggested in the joint statement that “Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison to him.”
“These latest findings once again underline the need to hold Russia accountable for its repeated violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention and, in this instance, the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention,” the joint statement added.
By Jacki Thrapp
