MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Monday (Feb 16) 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 Feb 16, 2024, in the “Polar Wolf” penal colony north of the Arctic Circle about 1,900 km (1,200 miles) 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.
“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.