The United Kingdom, along with France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands, has accused Russia of killing opposition leader Alexei Navalny with a poison derived from Ecuador dart frogs. A joint intelligence inquiry found that the toxin epibatidine, found in the skin of these frogs, was present in Navalny's body and highly likely caused his death.
Navalny died in a remote Arctic penal colony in 2024 while serving a 19-year sentence. Samples from his body were secured before burial and tested in laboratories of two allied countries. The UK stated that only the Russian state had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy this lethal toxin, and that there is no innocent explanation for its presence in Navalny's body.
The UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper condemned the act as barbaric, and the UK will report Russia to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for violating the Chemical Weapons Convention. The statement highlighted that epibatidine is not found naturally in Russia and that dart frogs in captivity do not produce the toxin.
Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, expressed gratitude to the European states for uncovering the truth, stating that Vladimir Putin is a murderer who must be held accountable. The Kremlin has a history of using poison against its enemies, including the 2006 death of Alexander Litvinenko and the 2018 nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal.
The information was released during the Munich Security Conference, coinciding with the second anniversary of Navalny's death. Yulia Navalnaya addressed the conference in 2024, vowing that those responsible would be punished. The UK has led efforts to expose Russian use of chemical weapons, including on the battlefield in Ukraine.
