The Kremlin on Monday flatly rejected accusations from five European countries that the Russian state had killed Alexei Navalny two years ago using toxin from poison dart frogs, but his widow said the truth had finally been proven.
Navalny, president Vladimir Putin’s most prominent domestic critic, died on February 16th, 2024, in the Polar Wolf penal colony north of the Arctic Circle about 1,900km northeast of Moscow. He was 47.
His death, which the Russian state said was from natural causes, occurred a month before Putin was re-elected for a fifth term in a landslide vote which western nations said was neither free nor fair due to censorship and a crackdown on opponents.
Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said on Saturday that analyses of samples from Navalny’s body had “conclusively” confirmed the presence of epibatidine, a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America and not found naturally in Russia.
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“Navalny died while held in prison, meaning Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison to him,” they said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the allegations.
“Naturally, we do not accept such accusations. We disagree with them. We consider them biased and not based on anything. And we strongly reject them,” Peskov told reporters.
The British government on Saturday declined to respond to a Reuters query about how the samples from Navalny’s body were obtained or where they were assessed.
A group of 15 mostly European countries – but also including Australia, New Zealand and Canada – issued a fresh statement on Monday, reiterating their demands for Russia to conduct a transparent investigation into Navalny’s death.
The statement, published on the German foreign ministry’s website, said that Russian human rights defenders were continuing Navalny’s legacy and called on Moscow to release “all political prisoners”.
The dart frog toxin allegations were made at the Munich Security Conference in advance of the second anniversary of Navalny’s death on Monday.
Yulia Navalnaya, his widow – who had alleged from the outset that her husband had been murdered by the Russian state – said on Monday that the findings provided the necessary proof to back her stance.
“Two years. We have attained the truth, and we will also attain justice one day,” Navalnaya wrote on X above a photograph of her late husband smiling.
Elsewhere, president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that Ukrainian intelligence showed more Russian attacks on energy targets lay ahead and that such strikes made it more difficult to reach an agreement on ending the nearly four-year war.
“Intelligence reports show that Russia is preparing further massive strikes against energy infrastructure so it is necessary to ensure that all air defence systems are properly configured,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.
Ukrainian, Russian and American delegations are gathering in the Swiss city of Geneva for a third round of US-brokered talks on Tuesday focused for the first time on the thorniest question of the war – the fate of Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia.
Zelenskiy said Russian attacks were “constantly evolving” and resorting to a combination of weapons, including drones and missiles, requiring “special defence and support from our partners”.
“Russia cannot resist the temptation of the final days of winter cold and wants to strike Ukrainians painfully,” he said. “Partners must understand this. First and foremost, this concerns the United States.”
Reuters was not able to immediately reach Russian officials for comment.
The head of Ukraine’s delegation, Rustem Umerov, said on Telegram that his team was already in Geneva looking forward “to constructive work and substantive meetings on security and humanitarian issues”.
Moscow wants Ukraine to cede the entirety of the Donbas area. The Kremlin confirmed that Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Putin, would lead the Russian delegation.
“This time, the idea is to discuss a broader range of issues, including, in fact, the main ones. The main issues concern both the territories and everything else related to the demands we have put forward,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Two earlier rounds of US-backed talks in the United Arab Emirates led to a prisoner swap but no breakthrough toward a settlement.
US president Donald Trump has said he is keen to broker an end to a conflict he has called a senseless “bloodbath” though Russia and Ukraine remain far apart on key issues including territory, who controls the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and the role of any western troops in postwar Ukraine. – Reuters
