Five European nations have concluded that Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny was killed in prison using a lethal toxin found in South American poison dart frogs, according to a joint statement released Saturday.
The United Kingdom, Sweden, France, Germany, and the Netherlands announced that analyses of samples from Navalny’s body “conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine”—a substance not naturally found in Russia. The countries asserted that Moscow possessed “the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison” while Navalny was held in an Arctic penal colony.
Only the Russian state had the combination of resources, motivation, and disregard for international law necessary to cause Navalny’s death, the statement added. Russian officials have consistently denied involvement.
The announcement came during the Munich Security Conference, where Navalny’s death was first reported in 2024. His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, responded on X, stating she “was certain from the first day that my husband had been poisoned,” and demanding accountability for President Vladimir Putin, whom she called “a murderer.
“Navalny, a prominent Kremlin critic, had been imprisoned since 2021 after returning from Germany, where he recovered from a Novichok poisoning attack.
