UK, allies say they’re convinced Kremlin critic Navalny was poisoned

Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands are convinced that late Kremlin critic, Alexei Navalny, was poisoned with a lethal toxin in an Arctic penal colony two years ago, they said in a joint statement on Saturday.

The five governments said their findings were based on analyses of samples from Navalny’s body, which they said “conclusively” confirmed the presence of epibatidine, a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America and not found naturally in Russia.

Russia has also been reported to the Organisation on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons over the breach, the statement issued in London said. The Russian government has repeatedly denied any responsibility for Navalny’s death.

Navalny died in an Arctic prison colony in February 2024, and was convicted of extremism and other charges, all of which he denied. His team and his widow Yulia Navalnaya have since accused Putin of ordering his murder.

He died “while held in prison, meaning Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison to him,” the joint statement said, adding that the findings showed Russia needed to be held accountable for “its repeated violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention and, in this instance, the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.”

“We are further concerned that Russia did not destroy all of its chemical weapons.”

In a separate statement, British foreign minister Yvette Cooper, who met Navalny’s widow at the Munich Security Conference, said that the findings were “shining a light on the Kremlin’s barbaric plot to silence his voice.”