The mother of a deceased Russian opposition leader said on Monday, February 16th she felt vindicated by a European assessment concluding that her son died of poisoning. She called for “justice” as supporters marked the second anniversary of his suspicious death in prison.
Alexei Navalny—one of President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest domestic opponents—died in an Arctic prison colony in February 2024 while serving a 19-year sentence. According to a joint statement issued on Saturday by Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, experts believe he was killed using epibatidine–—a potent toxin naturally found in certain species of poison dart frogs.
The Kremlin, however, has swiftly dismissed these findings. On Monday, spokesperson Dmitry Peskov rejected the five-nation assessment as “baseless,” maintaining the Russian government’s long-standing denial of involvement:
We naturally do not accept such accusations. We disagree with them. We consider them biased and baseless.
Even in death, Navalny remains designated “extremist” by Russian authorities.
