European Nations allege Alexey Navalny was killed with dart frog poison

The funeral service of Alexei Navalny in Moscow’s district of Maryino on March 1, 2024. Pic/Getty Images

Five European states have accused Russia of poisoning and killing opposition leader Alexey Navalny with a rare and lethal toxin derived from South American dart frogs, marking a dramatic escalation in international condemnation of Moscow.

In a joint statement issued on Saturday, timed to coincide with the Munich Security Conference, the foreign ministries of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said laboratory analysis of samples taken from Navalny's body "conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine", a toxin naturally found in poison dart frogs and otherwise absent from Russia. The governments said their findings leave no "innocent explanation" for the chemical's presence.

"The UK, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands are confident that Alexey Navalny was poisoned with a lethal toxin," the statement said, asserting that Moscow had the "means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison". Russia has denied the allegations.

Navalny, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, died in an Arctic penal colony on February 16, 2024, while serving a 19-year sentence he condemned as politically motivated. European nations say their findings show that his death was not a natural result of ill health but the consequence of deliberate poisoning.

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