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Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands allege Russia poisoned Navalny nearly two years ago, causing his death.
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Five European countries – Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands – have accused Russia of using poison dart frog toxin to kill Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
European allies claimed on Saturday that Mr. Navalny was poisoned while being held in an Arctic penal colony two years ago, a claim that Moscow rejected as propaganda.
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Navalny died in February 2024 at the age of 47 in an Arctic prison after being convicted of extremism and other crimes, all of which he denied. Russian authorities said the politician fell ill after a walk and died of natural causes.
What did European countries say about Navalny’s poisoning?
In a joint statement, the five countries said that analysis of samples taken from Navalny’s body “conclusively” confirmed the presence of epibatidine. Epibatidine is a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America and is not found naturally in Russia.
Britain said on Saturday that the poisoning showed a “worrying pattern of behaviour”.
The commission conducted a public inquiry into the poisoning of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in the UK in 2018. The commission concluded last year that Russian President Vladimir Putin must have ordered the Novichok nerve agent attack.
“Russia maintains that Mr. Navalny died of natural causes. However, given the toxicity of epibatidine and the reported symptoms, poisoning is very likely the cause of death,” the joint statement said.
The joint statement added that the latest findings underscore the need for Russia to be held accountable for its “repeated violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention, and now the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.”
It is unclear how European allies obtained samples from Navalny’s body.
What is poison dart frog?
The statement said that analysis of samples taken from Navalny’s body confirmed the presence of epibatidine.
Epibatidine is a neurotoxin secreted by wild South American poison dart frogs. These small, brightly colored frogs are usually found in rainforests.
It can also be produced in a laboratory, and European scientists suspect this is the case with the substance used against Mr. Navalny. It acts on the body like a nerve agent, causing shortness of breath, convulsions, seizures, slowed heart rate, and ultimately death.
How did Russia react?
The Russian government, which has repeatedly denied responsibility for Navalny’s death, dismissed the allegations as a “Western propaganda hoax,” according to the state news agency TASS, while the Russian embassy in London said: “You have to wonder what kind of people would believe this nonsense about frogs.”
“Once the test results are available and the composition of the substances is disclosed, we will comment accordingly,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was quoted as saying.
“Until then, all such claims are nothing more than propaganda aimed at diverting attention from the West’s pressing problems,” TASS news agency quoted her as saying. The report also said she described Mr. Navalny as a blogger “officially designated as a terrorist and extremist in Russia.”
Who is Alexei Navalny and when did he die?
Navalny was Russia’s opposition leader.
He gained notoriety in 2008 when he used his blog and other posts to accuse state-owned companies such as gas giant Gazprom and oil giant Rosneft of corruption.
Two years later, he founded RosPil, an anti-corruption project run by a team of lawyers that analyzes state agency and corporate spending, exposes violations, and takes them to court. In 2011, he founded the Foundation for the Fight against Corruption, which became his team’s main platform for exposing corruption allegations in Russia’s political upper echelons.
Navalny was the target of a nerve agent poisoning in 2020 that he blamed on the Kremlin, which has always denied involvement. His family and allies fought to get him flown to Germany for treatment and recovery.
Five months later, he returned to Russia, but was soon arrested and imprisoned for the last three years. He passed away on February 16, 2024.
His death was announced minutes before the opening of the 2024 Munich Security Conference. In response, the council made an unusual adjustment to allow Putin’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, to address the conference and called for Putin to be held accountable.
“I was convinced from day one that my husband had been poisoned, but now the evidence has come out…I thank the European countries for two years of meticulous work and uncovering the truth,” she said on social media after attending this year’s Munich conference on Saturday.
Navalny was born in 1976 in the western Moscow region. He graduated from RUDN University in Russia with a major in Law. While working as a lawyer, he also earned a degree in economics in 2001.
