Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Feb 14: Five European countries accused Russia of “poisoning” opposition leader and staunch critic of President Vladimir Putin — Alexei Navalny—with a lethal toxin.
The foreign ministries of the U.K., France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said on Saturday that analysis of samples from Navalny, who died two years ago, “have conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine,” a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America and not found naturally in Russia.
The countries said “only the Russian state had the combined means, motive and disregard for international law” to carry out the attack. “We know the Russian state now used this lethal toxin to target Navalny in fear of his opposition,” the UK’s foreign office said in a statement.
In a joint statement, the countries – UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands – said “Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison,” adding that they were reporting Russia to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for a breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said, “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.”
Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, claimed on Saturday that the “murder” of her husband in an Arctic prison in 2024 was a “science-proven fact.” On the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, Navalnaya said, “Two years ago I came on stage here and said it was Vladimir Putin who killed my husband. I was, of course, certain that it was a murder… but back then it was just words. But today these words have become science-proven facts.”
Navalny, who crusaded against official corruption and President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, staged massive anti-Kremlin protests against Putin and fought against corruption. He was serving a 19-year sentence, which he believed was politically motivated. He died in the Arctic penal colony in February 2024. However, Russian authorities claimed that he was ill after taking a walk and died from natural causes.
Navalny had earlier been poisoned in 2020, which he blamed on the Kremlin. He was flown to Germany for treatment, but five months later when he came back to Russia, he was immediately arrested and imprisoned.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said President Putin was willing to use chemical weapons against Russians, citing latest Western conclusions that Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a lethal nerve agent. “Two years ago, Alexei Navalny died from poisoning caused by one of the deadliest nerve agents. We now know that Vladimir Putin is prepared to use chemical weapons against his own people to maintain his grip on power,” Mr Barrot said in remarks on X.