European nations claim Alexei Navalny was poisoned by the Kremlin with a lethal dart frog toxin. The foreign ministries of the U.K., France, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands stated that samples from Navalny, who died two years ago, conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine, a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America and not naturally occurring in Russia. They accused Russia of having the means, motive, and opportunity to administer this poison, and reported the country to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for a breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention. British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper emphasized Russia's fear of political opposition, citing the use of this poison as a despicable tool. Navalny, a crusader against Kremlin corruption, died in an Arctic penal colony, serving a 19-year sentence he believed was politically motivated. His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has repeatedly blamed Putin for the death, a charge Russian officials deny. The toxin, epibatidine, works similarly to nerve agents, causing shortness of breath, convulsions, seizures, a slowed heart rate, and ultimately death. This is not the first time Navalny was targeted; he was previously poisoned with a nerve agent in 2020, which he blamed on the Kremlin. The U.K. has accused Russia of violating international bans on chemical and biological weapons, including the 2018 attack in Salisbury with the nerve agent Novichok, which a British inquiry attributed to President Putin. The Kremlin denies these claims.
