Alexei Navalny Was Murdered by Poison, Widow Claims, Citing Secret Lab Tests

Yulia Navalnaya

Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has claimed that her husband was murdered in prison by poisoning. The accusation is supported by the findings of two independent foreign laboratories that analysed biological samples smuggled out of Russia, she said. Meanwhile, fellow opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza suggests the reason these findings have not been made public is due to "agreements" between Western and Russian intelligence services.

Navalnaya stated that after her husband's death in a remote Arctic prison colony on 16 February 2024, his supporters managed to acquire biological samples from his body and send them abroad via a "reliable route". "Laboratories in at least two countries independently tested these samples and concluded that Alexei was murdered with poison," she announced. However, she did not disclose the names of the laboratories or the countries where they are located.

In a direct accusation, Navalnaya said, "I declare that [Russian President] Vladimir Putin is guilty of the murder of my husband, Alexei Navalny". She also accused Russian intelligence agencies of developing banned chemical and biological weapons and demanded that the research laboratories publish their findings.

This account starkly contrasts with the official statement from Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service, which reported that Navalny "felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately lost consciousness," and that resuscitation attempts failed. Navalnaya pointed to suspicious details, noting that prison staff had mentioned her husband experiencing convulsions—a potential sign of poisoning—but this was not mentioned in the official forensic report. The report did, however, note bruising on his elbows and knees that occurred 30 to 40 minutes before his death.

Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, who has himself survived two poisoning attempts, offered a potential explanation for the laboratories' silence. He believes the results are being withheld due to tacit agreements between intelligence agencies. He recalled his own experience, in which the FBI refused to release the full results of its investigation into his poisonings, citing a 1947 national security law that protects intelligence "sources or methods".

According to Kara-Murza, publishing the results for Navalny would be problematic for Western governments. "If Western laboratories publish the analysis results... it would officially confirm that the Russian Federation, under Putin's leadership, produces and uses banned chemical weapons," he argued. This would be a violation of the international Chemical Weapons Convention and would require a decisive reaction, which, he suggests, Western leaders may want to avoid.

Efforts to seek justice within Russia have been blocked. A court in Salekhard has stopped the proceedings on a complaint filed by Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, who was demanding that a criminal case be opened into her son's murder.