By Elsie Kamsiyochi
The mother of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has said that new findings pointing to poisoning as the cause of her son’s death confirm what she and her family believed from the outset: that he was deliberately murdered.
Speaking on Monday at her son’s grave in Moscow, Lyudmila Navalnaya said an assessment released by the UK and several European allies had validated her long-held conviction.
The statement, issued on Saturday, concluded that Navalny, who died in 2024 while imprisoned in a remote Siberian penal colony, was killed using a poison derived from a dart frog toxin.
It added that “only the Russian state had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy this lethal toxin.”
“This confirms what we knew from the very beginning,” Lyudmila Navalnaya said, marking the second anniversary of her son’s death. “We knew that our son did not simply die in prison. He was murdered.”
The Russian authorities have categorically rejected the accusation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow dismissed the findings as politically motivated and unfounded.
“We do not accept such accusations,” he told reporters. “We consider them biased, unsupported by facts, and we resolutely reject them.”
Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, also marked the anniversary with a public message, writing on social media that while truth had now been established, justice had yet to be achieved. “We have achieved truth,” she wrote. “And one day, we will achieve justice too.”
Yulia Navalnaya has previously said that laboratory analyses of biological samples smuggled out of Russia showed her husband had been poisoned, and she publicly challenged the laboratories involved to release their findings. At the time, the Kremlin declined to comment on her claims.
On Monday, dozens of people gathered at Borisovskoye cemetery in Moscow to lay flowers at Navalny’s grave, despite the risks associated with public displays of dissent.
Several foreign diplomats were also present. Among the handwritten notes left by mourners was one that read simply: “Alexei, we remember you every day.”
Navalny was 47 when he died in the “Polar Wolf” penal colony, above the Arctic Circle, where he was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism that his supporters and international observers widely viewed as politically motivated.
A charismatic and relentless critic of President Vladimir Putin, Navalny built a national profile by exposing alleged corruption at the highest levels of government and mobilising hundreds of thousands of Russians to protest.
His death came after years of persecution, imprisonment and exile. In 2020, he narrowly survived a poisoning with the Novichok nerve agent, an attack that Western governments blamed on the Russian state.
After recovering in Germany, he chose to return to Russia in 2021, saying he refused to abandon either his country or his principles. He was arrested immediately upon arrival and remained behind bars until his death.
At the time, Russian authorities said Navalny had died of natural causes. His family and supporters disputed that account, particularly after officials initially refused to release his body.
He was eventually buried in Moscow in March 2024, following a funeral that drew thousands of mourners and marked one of the last large-scale public gatherings of the Russian opposition.
Since then, repression in Russia has continued to intensify, especially following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
New laws have criminalised dissent, and expressions of opposition—whether on the streets or online—are frequently met with lengthy prison sentences. Many of Navalny’s allies are now jailed, living in exile, or facing arrest.
Yulia Navalnaya, who has taken over leadership of the Anti-Corruption Foundation founded by her husband, lives abroad with their two children and also faces the threat of prosecution in Russia.
Meanwhile, the Russian opposition in exile remains fragmented and divided, struggling to mount a coordinated challenge to the Kremlin.
As international pressure mounts following the latest poisoning assessment, Navalny’s family says its focus remains unchanged. “We will not forget,” Lyudmila Navalnaya said at the graveside. “And we will not stop speaking the truth about how and why our son died.”
Source BBC
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