Alexei Navalny was poisoned with epibatidine, the UK, Sweden, France, Germany and The Netherlands said after analysing samples taken from his body, and they concluded the toxin likely caused his death while he was held in prison.
The joint statement, agreed by the foreign ministers of France, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden and the UK, said analyses conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine, a toxin found on the skin of poison dart frogs in South America and not found naturally in Russia.
The governments said only the Russian state had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy the toxin while Navalny was imprisoned, and they described the finding as a breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention and a matter for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
The statement recalled earlier condemnations relating to novichok poisonings, and it said the latest findings also underline the need to hold Russia to account under the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.
The five governments said their permanent representatives to the OPCW had written to the director general to inform him of what they described as a Russian breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention, and they said they would use available policy levers to continue to hold Russia to account.
Reactions From Officials And Moscow
France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, posted on X that the evidence showed President Vladimir Putin was prepared to use biological weapons against his own people, and he paid tribute to Navalny as a leading opposition figure.
Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s wife, wrote on X that she had been certain from the first day that her husband was poisoned and called Vladimir Putin a murderer, and she thanked the European states for their work uncovering the findings.
The reporting noted that the United States was not among the intelligence agencies making the claim, and that scientists from the five European countries had identified the toxin as epibatidine derived from Ecuadorian dart frogs.
Moscow rejected the accusations. Maria Zakharova, a Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, told the TASS news agency the allegations were a disinformation campaign by the West and said analyses and formulas would be published with a commentary.
The Russian embassy in London described the statements as a mockery of the dead and said the campaign did not seek justice but aimed to divert attention from Western problems, echoing Moscow’s dismissal of the findings.
