LONDON (AP) — Five European countries said Saturday that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned by the Kremlin with a deadly poison obtained from the skin of poison dart frogs.
The foreign ministries of the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said analysis of samples from Navalny, who died two years ago, “conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine.” It is a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America that does not occur naturally in Russia, he said.
The countries said in a joint statement that “Russia had the means, motives and opportunities to administer this poison.” They said they were reporting Russia to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said, “Russia saw Navalny as a threat. By using this form of poisoning the Russian state demonstrated both the nefarious tools at its disposal and its tremendous fear of political opposition.”
Navalny, who fought against official corruption and sparked mass anti-Kremlin protests as a staunch foe of President Vladimir Putin, died in an Arctic penal colony in February 2024. He was serving a 19-year sentence, which he considered politically motivated.
Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said last year that two independent laboratories had found that her husband had been poisoned shortly before he died. Navalny has repeatedly blamed Putin for Navalny’s death, which Russian officials vehemently deny.
Navalnya said Saturday that she was “sure from the first day” that her husband had been poisoned, “but now there is proof.”
“Putin killed Alexei with chemical weapons,” he wrote on the social network X, calling Putin a “killer” who “must be held accountable.”
Russian officials said the politician became ill after a walk and died of natural causes.
In 2020, Navalny was poisoned in a nerve agent attack, which he blamed on the Kremlin, which had always denied involvement. His family and colleagues fought to get him taken to Germany for treatment and recovery. Five months later, he returned to Russia, where he was promptly arrested and imprisoned for the last three years of his life.
