Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny‘s wife claimed that independent lab tests on biological samples secretly taken abroad indicate he was poisoned while incarcerated in an Arctic prison in February 2024. Navalny, who was President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, died under mysterious circumstances died under mysterious circumstances while serving a 19-year sentence on charges widely seen as political retribution, AFP reported. In a video statement, Yulia Navalnaya said laboratories in two countries had concluded he was “killed, specifically poisoned,” but withheld details about the substance or the labs involved, urging them instead to release their findings independently.She said his 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.“I demand that the laboratories that conducted the analyses publish their results,” she said. “I assert that Vladimir Putin is responsible for the murder of my husband, Alexei Navalny,” she said in the video. “Stop appeasing Putin for some higher ‘considerations’. You cannot placate him. While you stay silent, he doesn’t stop,” Guardian quoted her as saying.Navalny, a charismatic anti-corruption campaigner who once mobilised mass protests and exposed alleged Kremlin graft, survived a 2020 poisoning in Siberia before returning to Russia in 2021 and being jailed for “extremism.” He continued criticising Putin and the war in Ukraine from prison. Russian authorities claim he died suddenly after falling ill during a walk; his body was initially withheld from his family, fuelling suspicions. Navalny has repeatedly accused the Kremlin of conspiring his death — a charge it denies.
