Kremlin denies Russia poisoned Navalny with frog toxin

Moscow denied responsibility for the death of opposition politician Alexei Navalny, two days after five European governments said new forensic analyses pointed to poisoning by frog toxin.

According to Russian state news agency Interfax, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Monday: “We do not accept such accusations, we do not agree with them, we consider them biased and unfounded. And we strongly reject them.”

Navalny died in prison in Russia in February 2024. Authorities said he suffered from “sudden death syndrome,” an umbrella term for many different causes of cardiac arrest.

On the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference last weekend, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom said analyses of samples from Navalny’s body detected epibatidine, a highly toxic substance derived from the poison of South American dart frogs.

“Given the toxicity of epibatidine and the reported symptoms, poisoning was highly likely the cause of his death,” the joint statement said.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova had also dismissed the claims over the weekend, calling them “merely propaganda aimed at diverting attention from pressing Western issues.”

Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, told attendees at the POLITICO Pub in Munich last weekend: “He was killed. He was very young — less than 50. He spent his last years in torturous conditions … Putin killed him.” She thanked the countries that supported the forensic investigation.

Navalny had survived an attempted poisoning in 2020, which he said was carried out by Russia’s internal security service, the FSB. Russia denied involvement.