Journalism of Courage
After more than a year of his death, widow of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Yulia Navalnaya has claimed that foreign laboratory tests prove her husband was poisoned. Navalny, 47, died in a remote Arctic prison on February 16, 2024, a death that stripped Russia’s opposition of its most prominent figure.
In a video posted on X, Navalnaya said biological samples smuggled out of Russia last year were analysed by labs in two different countries, both of which concluded he was poisoned. She urged the laboratories to publish their findings, calling them the “inconvenient truth,” but did not specify the substance allegedly detected.
We managed to transfer Alexei’s biological materials abroad. Laboratories in two different countries conducted examinations. These laboratories, independently of each other, concluded that Alexei was poisoned. These results are of public importance and must be published. We all… pic.twitter.com/Sp8w1322gY
— Yulia Navalnaya (@yulia_navalnaya) September 17, 2025Navalnaya has long accused the Kremlin of killing her husband, a charge Moscow rejects as “nonsense.” Russian investigators have claimed he died of “a combination of diseases,” an explanation she has dismissed.
US intelligence agencies, however, have assessed that Russian President Vladimir Putin did not personally order Navalny’s death, according to the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal.
