Five European countries have officially confirmed that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned by the Kremlin with epibatidine, a rare neurotoxin found in poison dart frogs, leading to accusations of a Chemical Weapons Convention breach and calls for Russia to be held accountable for his death.
The foreign ministries of the U.K., France, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands announced Saturday that European lab analyses of samples from Alexei Navalny's body 'conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine,' a neurotoxin secreted by South American dart frogs and not naturally found in Russia. They assert that 'Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison' and are reporting Russia to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for breaching the Chemical Weapons Convention. Navalny, a prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin, died in an Arctic penal colony on Feb. 16, 2024, while serving a 19-year sentence. British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper stated Russia saw Navalny as a threat and demonstrated its 'despicable tools' and 'overwhelming fear of political opposition.' French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot added it shows Putin is 'prepared to use biological weapons against his own people.' Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, who attended the Munich Security Conference, expressed certainty her husband was poisoned and declared, 'Putin killed Alexei with chemical weapon.' Russian authorities maintain Navalny died from natural causes after falling ill during a walk. Epibatidine, which can also be lab-manufactured, works similarly to nerve agents, causing severe respiratory and cardiac distress. European officials expressed high confidence in the assessment, despite the time taken for results. This incident follows a 2020 poisoning of Navalny with a nerve agent, and other alleged Kremlin-linked poisonings, including the 2018 Novichok attack on Sergei Skripal in Salisbury and the 2006 polonium-210 poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in London, all vehemently denied by Russia.
