
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been killed with a poison developed from a toxin extracted from a frog, the British Foreign Office has said.
Two years after Navalny's death in a penal colony in Siberia, Britain and its allies have pointed the finger at the Kremlin, following analyses of material samples found on his body.
According to the Foreign Office, there is no innocent explanation for the presence of a toxin called epibatidine in samples taken from Navalny’s body. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper stated that “only the Russian government had the means, the motive and the opportunity to use this deadly toxin against Alexei Navalny during his imprisonment in Russia.”
Cooper also met with Navalny's wife, Yulia Navalnaya, during the conference. She stressed that Russia saw Navalny as a threat and that the use of this type of poisoning shows the Russian state's deep fear of political opposition.
Britain has been joined in accusing Russia by Sweden, France, the Netherlands and Germany. The British Foreign Office announced that the United Kingdom has notified the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) of Russia's alleged violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Navalny, an anti-corruption activist and Russia's most vocal opposition figure, died on February 16, 2024 at the age of 47. In 2020, he was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok, was treated in Germany, and was arrested shortly after returning to Russia.