MUNICH – Five European countries, including Britain, France and Germany, accused Russia of poisoning

opposition leader Alexei Navalny

“The UK, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands are confident that Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a lethal toxin,” the countries said in a joint statement, following “analyses of samples” from his body.

The staunch critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin died in an Arctic prison in February 2024, while serving a 19-year prison sentence.

The epibatidine toxin found in the skin of dart frogs native to South America was found in samples and “highly likely resulted in his death”, the European states said.

“Only the Russian state had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy this lethal toxin to target Navalny during his imprisonment in a Russian penal colony in Siberia, and we hold it responsible for his death,” the British foreign office added in a statement.

Mr Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnya said it was now “science-proven” that the Kremlin opponent had been murdered.

“Two years ago, I came on stage here and said that it was Vladimir Putin who killed my husband,” Ms Navalnaya said on the sidelines of the conference.

“I was of course certain that it was a murder... but back then, it was just words. But today, these words have become science-proven facts,” Ms Navalnaya added.

In September, she said that laboratory analysis of smuggled biological samples found that