Five European countries have concluded that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died after being poisoned with epibatidine, a rare toxin found in South American dart frogs, and have held the Russian state responsible.
The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands issued a joint statement on Saturday following laboratory analysis of biological samples taken from Navalny’s body.
Navalny died on 16 February 2024 in the IK-6 penal colony in Harp, north of the Arctic Circle, where he was serving a 19-year sentence.
The five governments said independent national laboratories identified epibatidine in samples linked to Navalny.
“Epibatidine can be found naturally in dart frogs in the wild in South America. Dart frogs in captivity do not produce this toxin and it is not found naturally in Russia,” the joint statement said.
“There is no innocent explanation for its presence in Navalny’s body.”
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, speaking at the Munich Security Conference, said only the Russian state had the capacity to deploy the substance.
“Only the Russian government had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy this lethal toxin against Alexei Navalny during his imprisonment in Russia,” Cooper said.
She added that the United Kingdom would inform the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons of what it described as a breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
“Considering the toxicity of epibatidine and the reported symptoms, poisoning was a highly likely cause of death,” the joint statement said.
The countries expressed concern that Russia had not destroyed all of its chemical weapons stockpiles, despite declaring in 2017 that it had done so.
Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said she had been convinced from the outset that her husband was poisoned.
“I was certain from the first day that my husband had been poisoned, but now there is proof,” she wrote on X. “Putin killed Alexei with a chemical weapon.”
Navalnaya said in September that she had obtained biological samples from her husband’s body and sent them abroad for analysis. She said laboratories in two countries concluded that he had been murdered, though she did not at the time name the toxin involved.
Russian authorities have maintained that Navalny died of natural causes linked to existing health conditions. According to official accounts, he felt unwell after a walk in the prison yard and collapsed.
The Kremlin has not commented on the latest allegations.
Navalny, 47, was Russia’s most prominent opposition figure and an anti-corruption campaigner who built a nationwide network challenging President Vladimir Putin.
In 2020 he survived a poisoning attempt with the nerve agent Novichok while campaigning in Siberia. German military laboratories later confirmed the presence of the Soviet-era nerve agent after he was evacuated to Berlin for treatment.
He returned to Russia in 2021 and was arrested at the airport. Courts later handed him multiple sentences on charges his supporters described as politically motivated.
The five European governments said their findings followed a two-year inquiry and would be submitted to the OPCW in coordination with the United Nations.
“Only the Russian state had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy this lethal toxin to target Navalny during his imprisonment in a Russian penal colony in Siberia, and we hold it responsible for his death,” the statement said.
HT