A poison research institute linked to the Novichok nerve agent is believed to be behind the rare frog toxin that killed Vladimir Putin’s ‘primary enemy’ Alexei Navalny.
Britain and its allies said the Russian state was behind the opposition leader’s death following evaluation of fabric samples found on his body.
Scientists from Porton Down identified Epibatidine – a strong neurotoxin present in South American poison dart frogs – in samples linked to Navalny.
Now, attention has turned to the secretive Russian lab GosNIIOKhT that appears to have been working on obtaining the poison for over a decade.
Mr Navalny died at a Siberian penal colony in 2024 aged 47, after accusing the president of corruption.
The Russian authorities have continued to strenuously deny any involvement in his death and called the claims a ‘Western propaganda hoax’.
However the Foreign Office said there isn’t a innocent explanation for the toxin Epibatidine being found on Mr Navalny’s body.
The UK government has previously laid the blame at Russia’s door for the assassination attempt on former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury in March 2018, using the Novichok nerve agent.
Now it seems the toxin that took out Navalny could have originated from the identical lab as Novichok.
The State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology, called GosNIIOKhT, is widely described because the creator of the Novichok family of nerve agents.
Nevertheless, way back to 2013, GosNIIOKhT employees published a scientific paper describing a ‘preparative method for obtaining the analgesic epibatidine.’
Two years later, the poison experts published details of the ‘chromatographic determination of micro quantities of epibatidine and its biomarker in blood plasma.’
In addition they released one other scientific paper, proposing a ‘synthesis of structural analogues of epibatidine.’
A former GosNIIOKhT chemist who exposed the highest secret Novichok programme, said Russian specialists would have been fully capable of manufacturing the frog toxin.
Vil Mirzayanov, 90, who lives in exile, said: ‘They synthesised very complex compounds there, and this poison, I checked out the formula, it’s not complicated. It will possibly be easily synthesised. I believe it may get into the body in various ways: through food, water, through the skin.’
The top of the lab complex, Dr Alexander Kutkin, recently held a birthday celebration, inviting top figures in Russia’s network of poisoning experts, in line with Russian investigative journalist Sergey Kanev.
The GosNIIOKhT institute was placed under sanctions by the EU and United States after it was linked to the 2018 Salisbury poisonings.
The nerve agent was brought from Russia to the UK in a fake Nina Ricci perfume bottle and killed Dawn Sturgess, who unknowingly sprayed herself with it before collapsing in her flat in Amesbury.
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Novichok was also employed in an try to poison Mr Navalny in 2020.
British toxicology expert Jill Johnson described the usage of epibatidine as an ‘incredibly rare way of poisoning an individual.’
She said: ‘It’s 200 times stronger than morphine… With a properly chosen dosage, it may cause muscle twitching, paralysis, convulsions, a slowdown in heart rate, respiratory failure, and ultimately — death.’
Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said: ‘Scientists from five European countries have established: my husband Alexei Navalny was poisoned with epibatidine, one of the vital deadly poisons on earth.
‘I used to be sure that my husband was poisoned, from the primary day, but now there may be evidence: Putin killed Alexei with chemical weapons.’
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper suggested that latest sanctions may very well be imposed on Russia following their conclusions on Navalny’s death.
Asked on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme what the results of the accusation can be, Yvette Cooper said: ‘We proceed to take a look at co-ordinated motion, including increasing sanctions on the Russian regime.
‘As you understand, we’ve got been pursuing this as a part of our response to the brutal invasion of Ukraine, where we’re also coming as much as the fourth anniversary of that invasion as well.
‘We imagine that it’s the partnerships that we construct abroad that make us stronger at home. It’s by acting alongside our European allies, alongside allies internationally, that we do maintain that pressure on the Russian regime.’
Responding to the statement on Mr Navalny’s death, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: ‘When the test results can be found and the formulas for the substances are disclosed, we’ll comment accordingly.’
Until then, ‘all such assertions are merely propaganda aimed toward diverting attention from pressing Western issues.’
The Russian embassy in London said: ‘We’ve change into accustomed to the feeblemindedness of Western fabricators; who would you may have to be to imagine this nonsense a few frog?’
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