Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to use biological weapons against his own people just to stay in power, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Saturday. He made this statement shortly after France, along with four other European countries, expressed their belief that imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a deadly toxin in 2024, TASR reports, according to an AFP report.
- A French minister claims that Putin is willing to use biological weapons against his own people.
- Alexei Navalny died in prison from poisoning with a deadly toxin.
- Several European countries have confirmed that epibatidine toxin was found in Navalny’s body.
- Epibatidine is 200 times stronger than morphine and causes suffocation.
- Supporters say Navalny was murdered on Putin’s orders.
Navalny’s remains contained epibatidine
“We now know that Vladimir Putin is prepared to use biological weapons against his own people to stay in power,” Barrot wrote on Platform X, adding that Navalny died in prison “as a result of poisoning with one of the deadliest nerve agents.”
“We know that the Russian state used this deadly toxin to attack Navalny out of fear of his backlash,” Britain’s Foreign Office said in a statement on Saturday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference (MSC), along with Sweden, France, the Netherlands and Germany. The announcement came shortly before the second anniversary of the death of Navalny, who was a staunch critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The countries jointly said that analyzes of Navalny’s remains showed traces of the highly potent toxin epibatidine.
The death of Alexei Navalny
The opposition politician and founder of the Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK) Alexei Navalny died on February 16, 2024, at the age of 47, in the Polar Wolf prison camp in the town of Charp, which is located in the Yamalsko-Nenetsk Autonomous District beyond the Arctic Circle.
The prison service there claimed that Navalny suddenly felt nauseous during the walk, lost consciousness, and neither the prison medics nor the called paramedics were able to revive him. Supporters of the opposition activist say he was murdered on Putin’s orders. Moscow has long denied these accusations.
Epibatidine is approximately 200 times stronger than morphine
“Alexei Navalny was poisoned in Russian custody,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said according to the DPA agency. According to him, Navalny’s remains contained epibatidine, an extremely potent nerve toxin found in the skin secretions of certain species of highly poisonous frogs in Ecuador.
Wadephul added that the substance is about 200 times stronger than morphine and paralyzes the respiratory muscles, causing victims to suffocate.
