Five European nations have accused Russia of using a deadly toxin derived from a South American poison dart frog to kill opposition leader Alexei Navalny. In a joint statement released Sunday, the United Kingdom, Sweden, France, Germany, and the Netherlands confirmed the presence of epibatidine in samples taken from Navalny’s body.
The toxin, secreted by poison dart frogs native to South America, is approximately 100 times more potent than morphine and does not occur naturally within Russia, according to the statement. Researchers note that while frogs in the wild acquire the toxin through their diet, those bred in captivity do not produce it.
“These labs in two different countries reached the same conclusion: Alexei was killed. More specifically, he was poisoned,” Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, posted on social media following the release of the joint statement, adding that she had been certain of her husband’s poisoning from the outset.
Russian authorities maintain that Navalny died in prison in February 2024 after becoming ill during a walk, attributing his death to natural causes. This account is directly contested by the findings presented by the five European nations.
The alleged use of epibatidine represents a further escalation in the types of chemical weapons suspected of being deployed by the Russian government against its critics. This follows previous incidents involving the nerve agent Novichok.
Navalny, a prominent anti-corruption activist and vocal opponent of Vladimir Putin, previously fell ill on a domestic flight in Russia in 2020. He was subsequently treated in a Berlin hospital, where German chemical weapons experts determined he had been poisoned with Novichok. The Kremlin denied involvement in that incident, claiming a lack of evidence.
Investigations into the 2020 poisoning suggested the substance was applied to Navalny’s underwear while he was in his hotel room. Navalny himself claimed to have tricked a Russian state security operative into revealing details of a plot to kill him by placing poison in his underpants during a recorded phone call.
The use of Novichok was as well linked to the 2018 poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian double agent, and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England. Both Skripals survived, but the incident led to the death of Dawn Sturgess, a British woman who came into contact with a discarded perfume bottle believed to have been used to deliver the nerve agent. A British inquiry concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely approved the assassination attempt on the Skripals, and that the use and discarding of Novichok directly led to Sturgess’s death.
In 2006, former KGB officer and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko died in London after being poisoned with polonium-210, a highly radioactive substance, in a cup of green tea. On his deathbed, Litvinenko accused Putin of ordering his assassination. A British inquiry found that Russian agents were responsible for his death, potentially with Putin’s approval, though the Kremlin denied any involvement.
As of Sunday, Russian authorities have not responded to the latest accusations regarding Navalny’s death. The five European nations have not announced any immediate retaliatory measures, and the investigation into the source and delivery of the epibatidine remains ongoing.
