Kremlin rejects European accusations it poisoned Navalny with dart frog toxin

MOSCOW, Feb 16 (Reuters) – The Kremlin on Monday rejected accusations from five European countries that the Russian state had killed late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny two years ago using toxin from poison dart frogs, saying the claims were “not based on anything”.

Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent domestic critic, died in February 2024 aged 47 in a far-flung Arctic prison, a month before Putin was re-elected in a landslide vote which Western nations said was neither free nor fair.

In a joint statement on Saturday, Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said that analyses of samples from Navalny’s body had “conclusively” confirmed the presence of epibatidine, a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America and not found naturally in Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that Moscow took a very negative view of the European allegations, which he said were false.

“Naturally, we do not accept such accusations. We disagree with them. We consider them biased and unfounded. And, in fact, we strongly reject them,” said Peskov.

Russian authorities, who have outlawed Navalny’s movement as extremist, have previously rejected accusations from his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, that the state had killed him, saying he died of natural causes.

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Andrew Osborn)