Russian Officials Dismiss Navalny’s Cause Of Death As Nonsense

Russia has furiously denied the claim from European experts that Alexei Navalny was killed by frog toxin.

Navalny, Russia’s former opposition leader, was a vocal Kremlin critic who died under mysterious circumstances while in prison in February 2024.

Russian officials insisted Navalny died of natural causes after collapsing on a walk.

But the UK, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands announced as the Munich Security Conference that the Russian opposition leader was poisoned.

In a statement, the countries said: “Given the toxicity of epibatidine and reported symptoms, poisoning was highly likely the cause of his death.

“Navalny died while held in prison, meaning Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison to him.”

The countries called for the need to “hold Russia accountable for its repeated violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention, and, in this instance, the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention”.

Russia has furiously denied the claims. Its embassy in London called it a “political pageant”, and said there is “no reason whatsoever to credit such ‘findings’ by Western ‘experts’”.

“We have become accustomed to the feeble-mindedness of Western fabulists. One must ask what kind of person would believe this nonsense about a frog,” the diplomats said in a statement on Telegram.

Similarly, Russian diplomat and foreign affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova said: “When the test results are available and the formulas for the substances are disclosed, we will comment accordingly.

“Until then, all such assertions are merely propaganda aimed at diverting attention from pressing Western issues.

“Just as the investigation into the Nord Stream explosions was about to yield results, suddenly Navalny’s poisoning is brought into focus. When asked for Navalny’s test results, Western officials instead circulated sensational stories about the Skripals. This pattern continues unabated.”

Russia used novichok in Salisbury in 2018, which triggered the death of a British woman Dawn Sturgess.

Foreign secretary Yvette Cooper doubled down on the UK’s findings this morning, telling Sky News: “We have worked for the last two years, since the announcement of Alexei Navalny’s death, with our European partners on pursuing the evidence and pursuing the truth.”

“Only the Russian regime had the opportunity, the motive and means to administer this lethal poison while he was in prison in Russia,” Cooper added. “They wanted to silence him because he was a critic of their regime that’s why we have exposed this barbaric Kremlin plot to do so.”