The widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has said two independent laboratory tests on biological samples taken from her late husband show he was poisoned before his death.
In a video statement released on Wednesday, Yulia Navalnaya said foreign laboratories had carried out tests “independently of each other” – and repeated previous claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin was involved in her husband’s death.
She said: “These labs in two different countries reached the same conclusion – Alexei was killed. More specifically, he was poisoned.”
Ms Navalnaya said the tests took place after “we were able to obtain samples of Alexei’s biological material and securely smuggle them abroad” in February 2024.
She called for the labs which conducted the tests to “publish their results” and reveal what she called the “inconvenient truth”.
No further details were given about the tests.
Ms Navalnaya said: “Alexei was my husband. He was my friend. He was a symbol of hope for our country. Putin killed that hope. We have the right to know how he did it.
“Stop pandering to Putin on account of so-called higher considerations. While you remain silent, he does not stop.”
She opened the video by saying her husband – an outspoken critic against Mr Putin – “died in a penal colony beyond the Arctic Circle” and had been transferred to the “closed off place” two months before his death.
“All he had was six square metres of space, a cup, a toothbrush and a bed fixed to the wall during the day so it’s not possible to lie on it,” she said.
Ms Navalnaya added: “It was in this punishment cell that they killed him.”
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Mr Navalny, 47, died on 16 February 2024 in a Russian jail. The federal prison service said he had become unwell after a walk.
When asked about Ms Navalnaya’s remarks on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “I don’t know anything about these statements of hers, and I can’t say anything.”
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Mr Navalny voluntarily returned to Russia in 2021 from Germany, where he underwent treatment for what Western laboratory tests showed was an attempt to poison him with a nerve agent in Siberia.
He was arrested on arrival and was serving sentences on fraud, extremism and other charges that he said were trumped up to silence him.
