The United Kingdom and four of its European allies on Saturday accused Russia of being responsible for the death of Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny.
They said fresh scientific analysis confirmed that Navalny was poisoned with a rare and lethal toxin, according to Sky News.
Speaking at a joint press conference on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, officials from the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said laboratory tests had “conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine” in samples linked to Navalny.
Epibatidine is a highly toxic substance derived from poison dart frogs native to South America and is not known to occur naturally in the human body.
Sky News reported that the allied governments declared that “only the Russian state had the combined means, motive and disregard for international law” to carry out such an attack against the jailed opposition figure.
Navalny died in February 2024 in a remote Arctic penal colony in Siberia, where he was serving a 19-year sentence on charges widely condemned by Western governments and rights groups as politically motivated.
He had built his reputation as President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent domestic critic, leading anti-corruption investigations and organising nationwide protests that drew tens of thousands of supporters before being repeatedly arrested.
His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, appeared alongside Western officials in Munich, describing the latest findings as a critical step in establishing the truth.
“Two independent laboratories had previously suggested that Navalny was poisoned shortly before his death,” she said.
The widow maintained that the Kremlin was responsible an allegation Russian authority have consistently denied.
Saturday’s announcement has reignited scrutiny over previous poisoning cases linked to Russia.
In 2020, Navalny survived an attempt on his life involving the nerve agent Novichok, which Western governments blamed on Russian security services, but Moscow denied the claim.
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