The governments of Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden and the Netherlands have pointed out this Saturday to the Russian Government for the assassination of Russian opponent Alexei Navalny and they have indicated that a .
“This is the conclusion of our governments, which is based on the analysis of Alexei Navalny’s samples. These analyzes have conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine“, in reference to the toxin, the foreign ministers of these four governments have pointed out in an official statement released this Saturday.
Epibatidine is a toxin considered a chemical weapon under international legislation, the four governments highlight, recalling that “not found naturally in Russia“.
A “high probability” of poisoning
They claim that Russia claimed that Navalny died of natural causes, “but given the toxicity of epibatidine and the reported symptoms, poisoning is the cause of his death with a high probability.”
They have also recalled that Navalni was already poisoned in 2018 when he was in Salisbury, in the United Kingdom, with the agent known as Novichok and later again when he was already in prison in the Russian Arctic, according to the statement. “In both cases, only the Russian State had the combined meansmotives and disregard for international law sufficient to perpetrate these attacks,” they noted.
The four European capitals therefore ask that “Russia be held accountable for its repeated violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention” and in this case in particular for its failure to comply with the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.
Thus, the representatives of the four countries before the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons have written today to its general director, the Spanish Fernando Arias, “to inform him of this non-compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention.” “We are also concerned that Russia has not destroyed all of its chemical weapons,” they added.
“We and our partners will ensure that all avenues at our disposal are activated to hold Russia accountable,” they said.
After this statement was published, Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, highlighted that “scientists from five European countries have concluded that my husband was poisoned with epibatidine, a neurotoxin, one of the deadliest poisons on Earth.”
Navalnaya has highlighted that it comes from the Ecuadorian dart frog and that it causes “paralysis, respiratory arrest and a painful death.” “It was obvious from the first day that my husband had been poisoned, but now there is proof: (Russian President Vladimir) Putin murdered Alexei with a chemical weapon“, he denounced.
Navalny’s wife has expressed her gratitude to the European countries that “have worked meticulously for two years to discover the truth.” “Vladimir Putin is a murderer and must be held accountable for all his crimes“he appealed.
Navalny died on February 16, 2024 in the FKU IK-3 correctional colony in the Jarp municipality, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, in the Russian Arctic, when he was 47 years old. He had been imprisoned since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow from Berlin, where he had been recovering from Novichok poisoning on British soil.
Moscow, it should be remembered, rejected criticism of his death and asked to wait for the official results of the autopsy. Finally, Sergei Narishkin, director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, attributed the opponent’s death to “natural causes.”
