Russia killed Alexei Navalny with dart frog poison, European nations say

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.

- By JILL LAWLESS

The foreign ministries of the U.K., France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said analysis of samples taken from Navalny’s body “conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine,” a neurotoxin found in the skin of dart frogs in South America that is not found naturally in Russia.

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.

The announcement came as Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, attended the Munich Security Conference in Germany as the second anniversary of Navalny’s death approaches.

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 on a conviction widely believed to be politically motivated.