Adam GoldsmithAnd
Tom McArthur
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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was killed using a poison developed from a stinger frog toxin, the United Kingdom and its European allies said.
Two years after Navalny’s death in a Siberian penal colony, Britain and its allies blamed the Kremlin following the analysis of samples found on his body.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper said “only the Russian government had the means, motives and opportunity” to use the poison while Navalny was imprisoned in Russia.
According to the Tass news agency, Moscow called the discovery an “information campaign”, but Cooper said there was no explanation for the discovery of the toxin, called epibatidine.
As Cooper announced his findings, a joint statement was issued by the United Kingdom, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands.
Cooper met with Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, at the conference over the weekend.
“Russia viewed Navalny as a threat,” Cooper said at the event.
“By using this form of poison, the Russian state has demonstrated the despicable tools at its disposal and the overwhelming fear it has of political opposition,” she added.
In the statement, the allies said: “Only the Russian state had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy this deadly toxin to target Navalny during his imprisonment in a Russian penal colony in Siberia, and we hold it responsible for his death.
“Epibatidine can be found naturally in frogs in the wild in South America. Captive frogs do not produce this toxin and it is not found naturally in Russia.
“There is no innocent explanation for its presence in Navalny’s body.”
The Foreign Office said the UK had informed the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons about Russia’s alleged violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Praising Navalny’s “tremendous courage”, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said his “determination to reveal the truth left a lasting legacy”.
“I am doing whatever it takes to defend our people, our values and our way of life against the threat of Russia and the murderous intentions of Putin,” he added.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot also said his country “pays homage” to Navalny, who he said was “killed for his fight for a free and democratic Russia.”
Navalny – Russia’s most vocal anti-corruption activist and opposition leader – died suddenly in prison on February 16, 2024 at the age of 47.
In 2020, he was poisoned with Novichok nerve agent. He underwent treatment in Germany and was arrested at the airport upon his return to Russia.
“Extremely rare” toxin
Epibatidine, the toxin that the United Kingdom and its European allies said they used to kill Alexei Navalny, was first derived from a group of poison dart frogs native to northern South America.
Although epibatidine has previously been studied as an analgesic and to relieve painful inflammatory conditions of the lungs, it was deemed too toxic for clinical use.
Speaking to the Russian BBC, toxicology expert Jill Johnson said the product was “200 times more powerful than morphine.”
By acting on receptors in the central nervous system, it can cause “muscle contractions and paralysis, seizures, slowed heart rate, respiratory failure and ultimately death,” Johnson said.
This extremely rare neurotoxin is only found in one species of wild frog, in trace amounts, and only when the frog eats a specific diet, she told the BBC.
Researchers believe frogs acquire it through their diet, because animals from different habitats showed different levels of the toxin, and those raised in captivity did not.
Johnson described it as an “incredibly rare way to poison a person.”
She added: “Finding the wild frog in the right place that is on a specific diet to create the correct alkaloids is almost impossible… almost.”
German Federal Foreign Office via Getty Images
Before Saturday’s announcement, Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, had consistently maintained that her husband was killed by poisoning while serving a prison sentence in an Arctic penal colony in 2024.
She did not provide details of the poison allegedly used, the samples or the analysis – but challenged both labs to publish their results.
Reacting to the announcement, Navalnaya said: “From the first day I was sure that my husband was poisoned, but now we have proof.
“I am grateful to European states for the painstaking work they have carried out over two years and for discovering the truth,” she added.
According to the official Tass news agency, Kremlin spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: “All talks and statements are an information campaign aimed at distracting attention from the pressing problems of the West.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who carefully avoided naming Navalny during his lifetime, briefly referred to him a month after his death, saying the death of a person was “always a sad event.”
At the time of his death, Navalny had been in prison for three years on trumped-up charges and had recently been transferred to the penal colony.
According to Russian accounts, the 47-year-old took a short walk in his Siberian penal colony, reported feeling unwell, then collapsed and never regained consciousness.
