Five European countries confirmed in a joint statement on Saturday that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a deadly rare toxin while in custody in 2024, placing the blame for the attack on the Russian state, LETA reported, citing AP.
The foreign ministries of France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden reported that analyses of samples from Navalny, who died two years ago, "convincingly confirm the presence of epibatidine."
This is a toxin found in South American poisonous frogs.
To carry out the attack, "only the Russian state had both the means and the motive, as well as a disregard for international law," the statement said.
The countries indicated that they would inform the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons about Russia's violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Navalny died in prison in northern Russia in February 2024.
The opposition leader was serving a 19-year prison sentence, which Kremlin opponents considered politically motivated.
Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, stated last year that two independent laboratories found that her husband had been poisoned shortly before his death.
Russian opposition figures hold the head of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, responsible for Navalny's death.
