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The United Kingdom and allies have uncovered the “brutal and barbaric circumstances” surrounding the death of Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison.
The opposition leader died on February 16, 2024, at age 47, in a Russian penal colony in Siberia. His death, which coincided with the 2024 Munich Security Conference, sparked outrage.
The UK said collaborative work has confirmed through laboratory testing that the deadly toxin found in the skin of Ecuador dart frogs (epibatidine) was found in samples from Navalny’s body.
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper announced the findings Saturday at the 2026 Munich Security Conference, two years after Navalny’s death. His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, was at the conference.
“We know the Russian state now used this lethal toxin to target Navalny in fear of his opposition,” the Secretary said. The investigation involved Sweden, France, the Netherlands, and Germany.
Cooper declared that only Moscow had the means, motive, and opportunity to deploy the lethal toxin against Navalny during his imprisonment. “We hold it responsible for his death,” she stated.
Noting that the use of the poison violated the Chemical Weapons Convention, the UK insists Russia’s “irresponsible actions,” including its invasion of Ukraine, continue to threaten shared security.
In a joint statement, Britain, Sweden, France, Germany, and the Netherlands reiterated their confidence that the late Russian activist was poisoned with a lethal toxin.
“This is the conclusion of our Governments based on analyses of samples from Alexei Navalny,” they wrote. “These analyses have conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine.”
The allies recalled their August 2020 condemnation of “Russia’s use of novichok to poison Navalny,” and the use of novichok in Salisbury in 2018, which unalived a British woman, Dawn Sturgess.
The governments have now written to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to report the Russian “breach” of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Expressing concern that Russia did not destroy all of its chemical weapons, the allies vowed to, alongside partners, “use all policy levers at our disposal to continue to hold Russia to account.”
