Russia used rare frog toxin to assassinate opposition leader Navalny, allies say

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was killed using a rare and lethal toxin derived from dart frogs, five European countries said on 14 February 2026.

The U.K., France, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands announced that laboratory analysis of samples taken from Navalny’s body “conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine,” a neurotoxin naturally found in Ecuadorian dart frogs but not in Russia.

Navalny, who died while serving a 19-year sentence in an Arctic penal colony on 16 February 2024, had survived a previous poisoning attempt with a Novichok nerve agent in 2020.

The five nations said Russia had the means, motive, and opportunity to administer the toxin, making the Kremlin responsible for Navalny’s death. The United Kingdom plans to report Russia to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for breaching the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Epibatidine, 200 times more potent than morphine, acts on the central nervous system and can cause paralysis, respiratory failure, and death. Experts say the toxin is extremely rare and would be almost impossible to obtain outside a laboratory.

Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said she was “certain from the first day” that her husband had been poisoned, and expressed gratitude for the European investigation that confirmed the cause of death. Russian authorities have dismissed the findings as a disinformation campaign.

The European allies highlighted the case as a warning of the lengths the Russian government will go to suppress political opposition and maintain power.