Putin arch-rival Alexei Navalny died after being poisoned with a lethal toxin and Russia is to blame for the attack, Britain and its European allies have said.
In a dramatic press conference held at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said that analysis of samples from Navalny’s body had found the presence of epibatidine – a deadly toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America.
After the findings were announced by Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya, foreign secretary Yvette Cooper pinned the blame squarely on the Kremlin and said only Russia had the “means, motive and opportunity” to carry out such an attack.
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She said: “Today, beside his widow, the UK is shining a light on the Kremlin’s barbaric plot to silence his voice. Russia saw Navalny as a threat. 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.”
The five countries said Russia had shown a “repeated disregard for international law” and that they had reported the poisoning to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
The Kremlin has rejected the claims, with Russian foreign ministry Maria Zakharova telling TASS: “When the test results are available and the formulas for the substances are disclosed, we will comment accordingly.
“Until then, all such assertions are merely propaganda aimed at diverting attention from pressing Western issues,” the news agency cited her as saying. The report also said she described Navalny as a blogger “officially designated as a terrorist and extremist in Russia”.
Meanwhile, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer said Mr Navalny “displayed huge courage in the face of tyranny”.
He added: “His determination to expose the truth has left an enduring legacy, and my thoughts are with his family today. I am doing whatever it takes to defend our people, our values and our way of life from the threat of Russia and Putin’s murderous intent.”
After the press conference, Ms Navalnaya called for Vladimir Putin to be “held accountable”. She wrote: “I was certain from the first day that my husband had been poisoned, but now there is proof: Putin killed Alexei with chemical weapon.”
Ms Navalnaya previously announced her husband’s death at the same gathering, two years ago. The Kremlin has always denied any involvement.
Navalny, a thorn in the side of the Kremlin who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Putin protests, died in a penal colony in Siberia in February 2024, aged 47. The former lawyer had been serving a 19-year sentence on charges he believed to be politically motivated.
It is not clear how the frog poison was allegedly administered to Navalny. But the allies also pointed to an attempt to poison Navalny with the nerve agent novichok in 2020, which followed the Salisbury poisonings in 2018.
Ms Navalnaya said last year that two independent labs had found that her husband was poisoned shortly before his death. It had been widely assumed that Navalny had been poisoned by the Russian state, but evidence of the specific poison in his body, along with the statement by the European countries, is a new development.
In her statement, she added: “I am grateful to the European states for the meticulous work they carried out over two years, and for uncovering the truth. Vladimir Putin is a murderer. He must be held accountable for all his crimes.”
The Foreign Office said there can be no innocent explanation for the toxin having been found on Navalny’s body.
Ms Cooper added: “Since Yulia Navalnaya announced the loss of her husband here in Munich two years ago, the UK has pursued the truth of Alexei Navalny’s death with fierce determination. Only the Russian government had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy this lethal toxin against Alexei Navalny during his imprisonment in Russia.”
Navalny’s death came after Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with novichok in July 2018. Last year, a major inquiry into the poisonings found that Putin had ordered the “astonishingly reckless” attempted assassination of Mr Skripal as a “public demonstration of Russian power”.
The report also said the Russian president was “morally responsible” for the death of Dawn Sturgess, an innocent bystander who died after being exposed to the chemical weapon after it was left in a discarded perfume bottle.
Russia was also responsible for the assassination of former spy Alexander Litvinenko in the UK, according to the European Court of Human Rights. The 43-year-old, who had worked for the Russian security services before defecting to the UK, died after drinking green tea laced with poison in London in 2006.
The joint statement by the five countries said they are “confident that Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a lethal toxin”.
It added: “This is the conclusion of our governments based on analyses of samples from Alexei Navalny. These analyses have conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine. Epibatidine is a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America. It is not found naturally in Russia.
“Russia claimed that Navalny died of natural causes. But given the toxicity of epibatidine and reported symptoms, poisoning was highly likely the cause of his death. Navalny died while held in prison, meaning Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison to him.”
