Russia killed opposition leader with frog poison, 5 European countries say

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was “highly likely” killed in 2024 by a toxin found in poison dart frogs, five European nations said in a statement Saturday.

The U.K., Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands are “confident” he was poisoned with a lethal toxin after confirming the presence of epibatidine, which is not found naturally in Russia, based on samples taken from Navalny’s body.

This rejects Moscow’s claims that he died of “natural causes,” the joint statement said, adding that Russia had the “means, motive and opportunity” to administer the poison while Navalny was held in a Siberian penal colony.

“There is no innocent explanation for its presence in Navalny’s body,” they said.

An outspoken critic of the Kremlin, Navalny was seen as a serious threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

He died at age 47 in the Arctic prison on Feb. 16, 2024, prompting suspicion that his death was the result of state-sponsored murder.

Before his imprisonment, he was poisoned with Novichok, a banned nerve agent, but Russia denied any involvement. Mr. Putin said that if the Russian security service had wanted to kill Navalny, it would have “finished” the job.

Navalny underwent treatment in Germany and was arrested at the airport upon returning to Russia.

“Russia saw Navalny as a threat. By using this form of poison, the Russian state demonstrated the despicable tools it has at its disposal and the overwhelming fear it has of political opposition,” British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said in a statement Saturday.

The finding coincides with the Munich Security Conference, where Yulia Navalnaya is attending this weekend and spoke there two years ago upon learning of her husband’s death.

Ms. Cooper met with Navalny’s widow at the current conference.

In September, Ms. Navalnaya said she had evidence that he had been poisoned, citing two laboratories’ analyses of smuggled biological samples.

“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,” she said in a statement Saturday. “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.”

Moscow has dismissed the finding as “an information campaign aimed at distracting attention from the West’s pressing problems,” according to the Russian state-owned news agency Tass.

The five countries said they have written to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons about “Russia’s blatant breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention.”

“Russia has brazenly developed and deployed this poison in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention,” the statement reads. “Russia’s egregious and irresponsible actions, including its barbaric full-scale invasion of Ukraine, continue to threaten our shared security. Time and again the Russian state shows the depths it is willing to go to terrorize people and undermine democracy.”