\n<\/p>\n
LONDON (AP) \u2014 Five European nations say Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a lethal toxin, and are blaming the Russian state for the attack.<\/p>\n
The foreign ministries of the U.K., France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said Saturday that analysis of samples from Navalny, who died two years ago, \u201chave conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine.\u201d It is a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America.<\/p>\n
The countries said that \u201conly the Russian state had the combined means, motive and disregard for international law\u201d to carry out the attack.<\/p>\n
They said they were reporting Russia to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for a breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention.<\/p>\n
Navalny<\/a>, who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests as President Vladimir Putin\u2019s fiercest foe, died<\/a> in the Arctic penal colony in February 2024. He was serving a 19-year sentence that he believed to be politically motivated.<\/p>\n Navalny\u2019s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said last year that two independent labs had found that her husband was poisoned shortly before his death.Navalnaya has repeatedly blamed Putin for Navalny\u2019s death, something Russian officials have vehemently denied.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n