The Russian government on Monday rejected a joint statement from five European nations that alleged the Russian state was responsible for the death of opposition leader Alexey Navalny. The statement, issued on the second anniversary of his death, claimed Navalny was poisoned with a toxin derived from dart frogs while in custody.
The statement was released Saturday by the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. It asserted that Navalny was poisoned with epibatidine, a toxic alkaloid. The five countries said in their statement that the Russian state possessed the “means, motive and opportunity” to administer the substance.
During a press briefing on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to the allegations. “We naturally do not accept such accusations. We disagree with them,” Peskov stated. “We consider them biased and baseless.”
Navalny, a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, died on Feb. 16, 2024, at the age of 47. He was serving a 19-year sentence in a penal colony in the Yamal-Nenets region, north of the Arctic Circle, on charges including extremism. Navalny and his supporters maintained the charges against him were politically motivated.
At the time of his death, Russia’s federal prison service reported that Navalny felt unwell after a walk, lost consciousness, and died after resuscitation efforts failed.
Epibatidine is a compound found on the skin of certain poison dart frogs indigenous to South America. According to scientific sources, the toxin affects the nervous system and can cause seizures, respiratory paralysis, and cardiac arrest. The joint European statement suggested the substance could have been synthetically produced.
This is not the first instance of poisoning allegations involving Navalny. In August 2020, he fell ill during a flight in Siberia and was medically evacuated to Germany for treatment. The German government and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons later confirmed he had been exposed to a Novichok nerve agent. Several Western governments attributed the 2020 incident to Russian security services, an accusation Moscow has consistently denied.
Before his 2021 arrest and imprisonment, Russian authorities had designated Navalny’s political organizations as “extremist” groups, effectively banning their activities within the country.
The recent exchange between Russia and the European nations coincided with gatherings to mark the anniversary of Navalny’s death. On Monday, supporters and several foreign diplomats visited his grave at the Borisovskoye cemetery in Moscow.
