Russia has dismissed claims by Britain and its European allies that Alexei Navalny was killed with dart frog poison, labeling them a Western “information campaign.”
The Russian laboratory responsible for making the infamous Novichok nerve agents is believed to have synthesized the rare frog dart poison that Britain says killed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
It comes after scientists at Porton Down, Britain’s top-secret defense laboratory in Wiltshire, “conclusively” identified epibatidine – a powerful neurotoxin naturally occurring in South American dart frogs – in smuggled biological samples linked to Navalny.
The Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption activist was found dead in his cell in a remote penal colony in the Arctic on February 16, 2024, at the age of 47.
Following the discovery of the poison, Britain – backed by France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands – accused Moscow of violating the Chemical Weapons Convention. However, Russia has dismissed the claims as “an information campaign”, according to Tass news agency.
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Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper said at the Munich Security Conference that “only the Russian government had the means, motive and opportunity” to use the poison while Navalny was in custody.
“Russia saw Navalny as a threat,” Cooper said. “By using this form of poison, the Russian state demonstrated the vile tools at its disposal and the overwhelming fear it has of political opposition.”
In a joint statement, the allies said: “Captive dart frogs do not produce this poison and it does not occur naturally in Russia. There is no innocent explanation for its presence in Navalny’s body.”
It is believed that the Russian laboratory complex GosNIIOKhT – the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology – worked on the synthesis of the frog poison.
The Soviet-era institute is widely described as the creator of the Novichok family of nerve agents. Navalny was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in 2020 and underwent treatment in Germany.
In 2013, employees of GosNIIOKhT published a scientific article describing a preparation method for obtaining the analgesic epibatidine.
In 2015, institute scientists also published details of the “chromatographic determination of microamounts of epibatidine and its biomarker in blood plasma.” Another paper from the same year proposed a “synthesis of structural analogues of epibatidine”.
The institute was previously highlighted as central to the Novichok programme, including the 2018 poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury. It was later placed under sanctions by the EU and the United States.
The head of the laboratory complex, Dr. Alexander Kutkin, reportedly held a birthday celebration this month, attended by several figures linked to Putin’s poisoning experts, including the director of the GosNIIOKhT branch in Chuvashia, Pyotr Tsikhmaystruk; chemist Yuri Litvinov; Colonel Maksim Sharoiko of the Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces; African swine fever specialist Natalia Chernomashentseva; the institute’s financial director, Sergey Evdokimov, according to Sergey Kanev, a Russian investigative journalist specializing in the security services.
Exiled Vil Mirzayanov, 90, a former GosNIIOKhT chemist who exposed the top-secret Novichok program, said Russian specialists would have been fully capable of producing the frog poison.
“They synthesized very complex compounds there, and this poison, I looked at the formula, it is not complicated. It can be easily synthesized. I think it can get into the body in different ways: through food, water, through the skin.” He had previously predicted that Putin’s Frankenstein scientists were using a new poison to kill Navalny.
Epibatidine is an extremely potent neurotoxin first isolated from the skin of the Ecuadorian tree frog Epipedobates tricolor.
British toxicology expert Jill Johnson described it as an “incredibly rare way to poison a person”. She said: “It is 200 times stronger than morphine… At a properly selected dose it can cause muscle twitching, paralysis, convulsions, a slowing of the heart rate, respiratory failure and ultimately death.”
Documented cases of human exposure are extremely rare and have previously been limited to laboratory accidents.
Dr. Alexander Polupan, who treated Navalny after the 2020 Novichok attack, said the known symptoms were consistent with epibatidine poisoning. A graphic image shows vomit in Navalny’s cell after his death.
Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said British and European experts had finally determined the cause of his death.
“Scientists from five European countries have determined: my husband Alexei Navalny was poisoned with epibatidine, one of the deadliest poisons on earth,” she said. “I was sure from day one that my husband was poisoned, but now there is proof: Putin killed Alexei with chemical weapons.”
Russia has disputed the claims. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: “When the test results are available and the formulas for the substances are announced, we will comment accordingly.”
“All such claims are just propaganda aimed at diverting attention from pressing Western issues,” she added.
The Russian embassy in London said: “We have become accustomed to the stupidity of Western fabrications; who would you have to be to believe this nonsense about a frog?”
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