London: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned by the Kremlin with a rare and lethal toxin found in the skin of poison dart frogs, five European countries said Saturday, the Associated Press reported.
The foreign ministries of the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said analysis in European labs of samples taken from Navalny’s body “conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine.” The neurotoxin secreted by dart frogs in South America is not found naturally in Russia, they said.
A joint statement said: “Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison.”
The five countries said they were reporting Russia to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for a breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention. There was no immediate comment from the organisation.
Navalny, who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests as President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, died in an Arctic penal colony on Feb. 16, 2024, while serving a 19-year sentence that he believed to be politically motivated.
“Russia saw Navalny as a threat,” British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said. “By using this form of poison the Russian state demonstrated the despicable tools it has at its disposal and the overwhelming fear it has of political opposition.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot wrote on X that the poisoning of Navalny shows “that Vladimir Putin is prepared to use biological weapons against his own people in order to remain in power.”
The European nations’ assessment came as Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, attended the Munich Security Conference in Germany, just before the second anniversary of Navalny’s death.
She said last year that two independent labs had found that her husband was poisoned shortly before he died. She has repeatedly blamed Putin for her husband’s death. Russian officials have vehemently denied the accusation.