According to new test results Russian dissident Alexei Navalny died from the poison of the lethal dart frog – but exactly how did it end his life?
The Russian state is no stranger to accusations of using exotic poisons to take down its enemies.
From the notorious Salisbury Novichok poisonings in 2018 that rocked the country and left innocent UK citizen Dawn Sturgess dead, to the murder of Putin dissident Alexander Litvinenko by polonium-laced poison tea in London, 2006, it has a clear history of slipping toxic substances into the bodies of its opponents.
Now, UK and European allies have revealed that Russian opposition leader and activist Alexei Navalny most likely met a similar fate, but this time through a poison they believe to be derived form a tiny rainforest creature – the poison dart frog.
Considered one of the planet’s most lethally toxic species, each poison dart frog is believed to have enough poison to wipe out 10 to 20 human beings, with as little as the equivalent of two grains of salt enough to kill one person.
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According to Dr Eric Franssen, doctor in clinical toxicology and pharmacology, the dart frog’s venom could be the perfect poison to take down enemies with minimal detection.
The expert, who works at the Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis hospital in the Netherlands, said: “I can imagine that these kinds of poisons are interesting [to Russia] because they are quite difficult to detect.
“Because in hospitals, we will not detect them in a routine toxicology screen. So perhaps this is a way to disguise intoxications.”
However, two years on from Navalny’s sudden death in a Siberian penal colony, UK and allies announced that analysis of of material samples found on his body show that the patriot died from a dose of the lethal substance.
The tell-tale sign in this case was the presence of chemical epibatidine in Nalvany’s samples, a toxin which is only present in dart frogs in the wild in South America and is not found naturally in Russia.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said at the Munich Security Conference that “only the Russian government had the means, motive and opportunity” to poison Navalny with he was imprisoned in Russia.
Although it is believed that in this case the poison used to kill Navalny may have been produced in a lab, the naturally occurring toxin is used by poison dart frogs to ward of predators.
Once ingested, the powerful substance paralyses its victim, making it only a matter of minutes before they succumb to its affects.
Dr Franssen told Sky News: “We do not know very much of these toxins in humans because you cannot experiment, of course, with this kind of toxins in real life, only in animals. But there have been reports that people may die after 10 to 20 minutes of intake of this when you have a certain amount of these toxins.”
“This can be done by ingestion or injection in the bloodstream. I suppose then it has a direct effect on the muscles and the heart. And it paralyses the muscles, also your respiratory muscles. And then you become very low in your oxygen in blood. And also by cardiac failure, your brain does not receive any oxygen anymore and this may cause death.”
Evidence that Navalny vomited was pictured at the scene of his death just moments after his body was removed – a symptom that Dr Franssen said is likely to take hold quickly after exposure.
The new revelation disputes Russia’s official line that Navalny’s cause of death was an episode of high blood pressure brought about by a chronic heart arrhythmia – something which his widow Yulia Navalnaya has always rejected.
Up until the point of his death, Navalny was believed to be in good health despite his imprisonment in the Polar Wolf colony notorious for its brutal conditions and appeared in court looking positive the day before he died.
The political dissident and anti-Putin activist had previously miraculously survived another attempt on his life in 2020, this time with deadly Novichok nerve agent.
When he returned to Russia in 2021 he was convicted on false charges and imprisoned, living out the last few years of his life in jail.
Russia have dismissed these new claims as to the cause of his death, branding them an “information campaign”.
