Putin’s arch-rival Alexei Navalny has died after being poisoned with a lethal toxin and Russia is to blame for the attack, the UK and its allies have said.
The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said at a press conference at the Munich security conference on Saturday that the analysis of samples from Navalny “conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine.”
It is a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America.
Yulia Navalnaya, his widow, appeared at a press conference at the event to announce the find.
On social media, she said “I was sure from the first day that my husband was poisoned, but now there is proof: Putin killed Alexei with a chemical weapon.”
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The Kremlin has always denied that it caused Navalny’s death, but the United Kingdom and its allies said that “only the Russian state had the means, the motive and the lack of respect for international law” to carry out the attack on the Leader of the Russian opposition.
Vladimir Putin (AP)
The allies also pointed to an attempted poisoning of Mr Navalny with the Novichok nerve agent in 2020, which followed the Salisbury poisonings in 2018.
They will now send their findings to the UN chemical weapons watchdog, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
Navalny, who crusaded against official corruption and staged large protests against the Kremlin, died in a penal colony in Siberia in February 2024.
He was serving a 19-year sentence that he believed was politically motivated.
Mrs Navalnaya said last year that two independent laboratories had found that her husband had been poisoned shortly before his death. She has repeatedly blamed Putin for Navalny’s death, something Russian officials have vehemently denied.
It is not clear how the frog poison was allegedly administered to Navalny.
Mrs Navalnaya wrote on social media on Saturday: “I was sure from the first day that my husband was poisoned, but now there is proof: Putin killed Alexei with a chemical weapon.
“I am grateful to the European states for the meticulous work they carried out over two years and for revealing the truth. “Vladimir Putin is a murderer. He must be held accountable for all his crimes.”
Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny steps away from his press in 2024 ((c) Copyright 2024, dpa (www.dpa.de). Alle Rechte vorbehalten)
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, who met Mrs Navalnaya at a conference in Germany at the weekend, said: “Since Yulia Navalnaya announced the loss of her husband here in Munich two years ago, the UK has pursued the truth of Alexei Navalny’s death with fierce determination.
“Only the Russian Government had the means, the motive and the opportunity to use this lethal toxin against Alexei Navalny during his imprisonment in Russia.
“Today, next to his widow, the United Kingdom is shining a light on the Kremlin’s barbaric plot to silence his voice.
“Russia saw Navalny as a threat.
“By using this form of poison, the Russian state has shown the extreme tools it has at its disposal and the great fear it has of the political opposition.”
A joint statement from the British Government and its allies in Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands said they “are confident that Alexei Navalny has been poisoned with a lethal toxin”.
She added: “This is the conclusion of our Governments based on an analysis of samples by Alexei Navalny.
“These analyzes conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine.
“Epibatidine is a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America.
“It is not found naturally in Russia.
“Russia claimed that Navalny died of natural causes.
“But given the toxicity of epibatidine and the reported symptoms, poisoning was most likely the cause of his death.
“Navalny died while in prison, meaning Russia had the means, the motive and the opportunity to administer this poison.”
This story is being updated