Five European Nations Confirm Navalny Was Poisoned With Dart Frog Toxin, Blame Kremlin

Two years after Alexei Navalny collapsed and died in a remote Arctic penal colony, five European governments have formally accused Russia of poisoning the opposition leader with one of the deadliest toxins known to science.

The foreign ministries of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands issued a joint statement on Saturday confirming that laboratory analysis of samples from Navalny's body had "conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine" . The substance is a neurotoxin found naturally only on the skin of poison dart frogs native to Ecuador — it does not occur in Russia, and captive frogs do not produce it Russia killed Alexei Navalny with frog toxin, UK and allies saytheguardian.com·SecondaryFormer opposition leader’s death while in Arctic jail at age of 47 result of mixture of diseases, according to Moscow The Foreign Office has blamed the Russian state for the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which it said was the result of poisoning from a dart frog toxin. The frog poison – called epibatidine – is said to have been used when Navalny, 47, died suddenly on 16 February 2024..

The findings were revealed at the Munich Security Conference in a press conference that carried unmistakable symbolic weight. Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny's widow, stood flanked by the foreign ministers of all five nations at the same venue where, exactly two years earlier on February 16, 2024, she had learned of her husband's death and addressed the conference in tears Russia killed Alexei Navalny with frog toxin, UK and allies saytheguardian.com·SecondaryFormer opposition leader’s death while in Arctic jail at age of 47 result of mixture of diseases, according to Moscow The Foreign Office has blamed the Russian state for the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which it said was the result of poisoning from a dart frog toxin. The frog poison – called epibatidine – is said to have been used when Navalny, 47, died suddenly on 16 February 2024..

"Scientists from five European countries have established: my husband, Alexei Navalny, was poisoned with epibatidine — a neurotoxin, one of the deadliest poisons on earth," Navalnaya said at the Saturday press conference in Munich Russia killed Alexei Navalny using an exotic poison, 5 European countries, including Germany, saydw.com·Secondary. She added that she had always been certain it was murder: "Today, these words have become scientifically proven facts" Russia killed Alexei Navalny using an exotic poison, 5 European countries, including Germany, saydw.com·Secondary.

British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper attributed responsibility directly to Moscow. "Only the Russian government had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy this lethal toxin against Alexei Navalny during his imprisonment in Russia," Cooper said at the Munich conference on Saturday Russia killed Alexei Navalny with frog toxin, UK and allies saytheguardian.com·SecondaryFormer opposition leader’s death while in Arctic jail at age of 47 result of mixture of diseases, according to Moscow The Foreign Office has blamed the Russian state for the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which it said was the result of poisoning from a dart frog toxin. The frog poison – called epibatidine – is said to have been used when Navalny, 47, died suddenly on 16 February 2024..

Epibatidine is a potent alkaloid roughly 200 times stronger than morphine, first isolated from the Ecuadorian phantom poison frog (Epipedobates anthonyi) in the early 1990s Russia killed Alexei Navalny using an exotic poison, 5 European countries, including Germany, saydw.com·Secondary. It acts on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and can cause respiratory paralysis at minute doses. The joint statement noted that the substance "is not naturally found in Russia" and that "there is no innocent explanation for its presence in Navalny's body" Russia killed Alexei Navalny with frog toxin, UK and allies saytheguardian.com·SecondaryFormer opposition leader’s death while in Arctic jail at age of 47 result of mixture of diseases, according to Moscow The Foreign Office has blamed the Russian state for the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which it said was the result of poisoning from a dart frog toxin. The frog poison – called epibatidine – is said to have been used when Navalny, 47, died suddenly on 16 February 2024.. It remains unclear how the toxin was administered or what chain-of-custody procedures the five nations followed in obtaining and transporting the biological samples from Russia to European laboratories.

Navalny was being held at the IK-3 "Polar Wolf" penal colony, approximately 40 miles north of the Arctic Circle, when he died on February 16, 2024 Russia killed Alexei Navalny with frog toxin, UK and allies saytheguardian.com·SecondaryFormer opposition leader’s death while in Arctic jail at age of 47 result of mixture of diseases, according to Moscow The Foreign Office has blamed the Russian state for the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which it said was the result of poisoning from a dart frog toxin. The frog poison – called epibatidine – is said to have been used when Navalny, 47, died suddenly on 16 February 2024.. Russian prison authorities reported at the time that he had felt unwell after a walk and collapsed.

Moscow has consistently maintained that Navalny died of natural causes. Russian officials attributed his death to heart arrhythmia triggered by hypertension — an account the five European nations have now formally rejected . Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has previously called Western accusations of Russian involvement "absolutely rabid statements" and characterized them as politically motivated Russia killed Alexei Navalny using an exotic poison, 5 European countries, including Germany, saydw.com·Secondary. As of Saturday evening, the Kremlin had not issued a formal response to the new epibatidine findings.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has in the past accused Western governments of weaponizing Navalny's case to justify sanctions and diplomatic pressure against Moscow, arguing that the opposition leader's health problems were pre-existing. Independent Russian media outlet Meduza has reported that Russian forensic officials conducted their own autopsy and stood by the natural causes determination, though Western governments have questioned the transparency of that process.

Some toxicology experts have urged caution about the findings pending full publication. While epibatidine is well-characterized in pharmacological literature, its detection in post-mortem samples requires sophisticated mass spectrometry techniques, and the provenance and handling of the samples will be subject to scrutiny. The five governments have not yet released the full laboratory reports or identified which specific institutions conducted the analysis.

The United Kingdom announced it has formally reported the poisoning to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, alleging a "flagrant violation" of the Chemical Weapons Convention by Russia Russia killed Alexei Navalny with frog toxin, UK and allies saytheguardian.com·SecondaryFormer opposition leader’s death while in Arctic jail at age of 47 result of mixture of diseases, according to Moscow The Foreign Office has blamed the Russian state for the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which it said was the result of poisoning from a dart frog toxin. The frog poison – called epibatidine – is said to have been used when Navalny, 47, died suddenly on 16 February 2024.. The OPCW, which is headquartered in The Hague, has the authority to launch its own investigation and could refer the matter to the UN Security Council — though Russia holds a permanent veto there, limiting the body's enforcement options.

The epibatidine finding adds Navalny's death to a documented history of Russian state poisonings that includes the 2006 killing of Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium in London, the 2018 Novichok nerve agent attack on former spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, and a previous attempt on Navalny himself with the nerve agent Novichok in August 2020 Russia killed Alexei Navalny with frog toxin, UK and allies saytheguardian.com·SecondaryFormer opposition leader’s death while in Arctic jail at age of 47 result of mixture of diseases, according to Moscow The Foreign Office has blamed the Russian state for the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, which it said was the result of poisoning from a dart frog toxin. The frog poison – called epibatidine – is said to have been used when Navalny, 47, died suddenly on 16 February 2024.. Navalny survived that earlier poisoning only because his plane made an emergency landing in Omsk and he was subsequently transferred to Berlin's Charité hospital. After recovering, he returned voluntarily to Russia in January 2021 and was immediately arrested. He was sentenced to a combined 30 and a half years in prison under what Western governments and human rights organizations widely condemned as politically motivated charges Russia killed Alexei Navalny using an exotic poison, 5 European countries, including Germany, saydw.com·Secondary.

Since her husband's death, Yulia Navalnaya has emerged as a prominent opposition figure in her own right. In September 2025, she revealed that she had managed to transfer biological samples from Navalny's body abroad for independent testing — an operation she provided no details about beyond confirming that multiple countries were involved . Navalny's team had previously accused Russian authorities of refusing to release his body and delaying access by his lawyers and mother — behavior they characterized as an attempt to destroy evidence Russia killed Alexei Navalny using an exotic poison, 5 European countries, including Germany, saydw.com·Secondary. When his remains were finally returned a week after his death, thousands of mourners gathered for his funeral in Moscow. Hundreds of Russians were subsequently detained simply for laying flowers at makeshift memorials around the country Russia killed Alexei Navalny using an exotic poison, 5 European countries, including Germany, saydw.com·Secondary.

The announcement carries particular diplomatic weight coming during a Munich Security Conference already dominated by questions about European security architecture, the war in Ukraine, and transatlantic relations under the Trump administration. Whether the OPCW referral leads to formal proceedings, additional sanctions, or further diplomatic isolation of Russia will depend on how broadly the findings are endorsed beyond the five signatory nations — and whether the full forensic evidence withstands independent scientific review.