Putin's arch foe Alexei Navalny was poisoned in Arctic penal colony, his widow says

THE WIDOW OF Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has said that two independent laboratories found that her husband was poisoned shortly before his death in a Russian prison.

Navalny was President Vladimir Putin’s most vocal and recognisable critic, who made fighting corruption the cornerstone of his political project and was able to draw crowds of hundreds of thousands at his rallies.

He died in an Arctic penal colony in February 2024 while serving a 19-year sentence on a number of charges that he and many observers believed to be politically motivated.

Authorities claimed at the time that the politician became ill after a walk but have otherwise given few details on his death. He was 47.

In a video released on Wednesday, Yulia Navalnaya said that biological samples from her husband’s body had been taken out of Russia and tested at two laboratories abroad.

Before he was buried, Navalnaya said her husband’s allies “were able to obtain and securely transfer biological samples of Alexei abroad”.

“Laboratories in two countries came to the conclusion that Alexei was killed. Specifically: poisoned,” she said in a video posted on social media.

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She did not divulge details of what samples were obtained nor the results of the analysis, but she urged the labs to independently release their results and to specify which poison they believe was used.

Navalnaya also published unverified photos she said were of his prison cell after his body was removed, showing a pool of vomit on the floor, and claimed that testimony from prison officials said he had been convulsing on the floor.

Asked about the allegations in a daily briefing with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment.

Navalny was previously poisoned with a nerve agent of the Novichok type in 2020 while campaigning in Siberia.

He was flown to Germany for emergency treatment, where he spent months recovering.

Upon his return to Russia in January 2021, he was arrested and convicted on a series of charges, including “extremism”.

With reporting from AFP and Press Association

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