LONDON — Five European allies said Saturday that tests of samples from the body of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny found epibatidine, a rare toxin associated with South American poison dart frogs, and said it supports the Navalny poisoned allegation surrounding his death in an Arctic penal colony above the Arctic Circle in 2024. In a coordinated move, Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said they have informed the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, while Russian officials dismissed the accusation as a Western smear, Feb. 14, 2026.
In a joint statement released by the five governments, the countries said analyses “conclusively” confirmed epibatidine and argued that Russia had the “means, motive and opportunity” to administer the substance while Navalny was in state custody.
Reuters reported that Moscow, citing the state-run TASS news agency, called the Navalny poisoned claim “a Western propaganda hoax.”
Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said the findings confirmed what she believed from the start. “I was certain from the first day that my husband had been poisoned, but now there is proof,” she wrote on social media, according to Reuters.
Navalny poisoned: what the European allies say they found
The governments said epibatidine is a lethal toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America and “not found naturally in Russia.” They said Russia claimed Navalny died of natural causes, but that the toxin’s potency and Navalny’s reported symptoms made poisoning the most likely cause of death — a finding the allies say shows Navalny poisoned while he was in state custody.
The allies said their permanent representatives notified the OPCW, which is based in The Hague and oversees the Chemical Weapons Convention, and they also cited the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention in arguing the case for accountability.
Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said the work that led to the Navalny poisoned conclusion was carried out in coordination with European partners and that the toxin “highly likely” resulted in his death, in a separate British government briefing.
Officials did not publicly detail how the samples were obtained or which laboratories conducted the testing. The British government declined to explain the chain of custody when asked by Reuters.
Kremlin rejects the accusation and demands technical details
Russian officials rejected the allegation and said they would respond only after test results and formulas are disclosed, according to Reuters, which cited comments carried by TASS from Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.
The Associated Press said the five countries argued that “only the Russian state had the combined means, motive and disregard for international law” to carry out the attack, as carried in an AP report published by ABC News.
A long timeline of poisoning allegations around Navalny
The latest Navalny poisoned claim builds on years of earlier allegations and investigations. Navalny survived a near-fatal illness in August 2020 after collapsing on a flight in Russia and was later treated in Germany. Germany requested technical assistance from the OPCW, which later said its designated laboratories confirmed biomarkers of a cholinesterase inhibitor in his blood and urine, in an OPCW report summary released in October 2020.
Separate investigative reporting by Bellingcat and partners alleged that officers from Russia’s Federal Security Service tracked Navalny for years and were linked to the 2020 poisoning, including a recorded call in which an officer described an attempted cleanup of evidence, according to a December 2020 Bellingcat account. Russian officials rejected those findings.
Navalny returned to Russia in 2021 and was repeatedly sentenced in cases he said were politically driven. He died Feb. 16, 2024, after falling unconscious following a walk at the “Polar Wolf” penal colony above the Arctic Circle, Russian prison authorities said at the time, according to a 2024 Reuters report.
With the new findings, the allies said they would use “all policy levers” to hold Russia to account and reiterated concerns that Moscow did not destroy all of its chemical weapons. Russia continues to deny wrongdoing as calls for accountability sharpen around the Navalny poisoned allegation.
