Two years after the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, new allegations have reignited international tensions, as his mother declared that recent findings confirm her long-held belief that her son was murdered.
Lyudmila Navalnaya spoke on Monday at Borisovskoye Cemetery in Moscow, where she visited her son’s grave on the second anniversary of his death. “This confirms what we knew from the very beginning,” she said. “We knew that our son did not simply die in prison; he was murdered.”
Her statement followed a joint declaration issued Saturday by the United Kingdom and several European allies. The statement alleged that Navalny was killed using a poison developed from a toxin found in dart frogs, arguing that “only the Russian state had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy this lethal toxin.”
The Kremlin swiftly rejected the accusations. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed them as “biased and unfounded,” saying Moscow resolutely rejects any claims of state involvement.
Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, also marked the anniversary with a message on social media, stating: “We have achieved truth and we will achieve justice one day too.” She previously revealed that laboratories in two countries had analyzed biological samples smuggled out of Russia and concluded that her husband had been murdered. She called on the laboratories to publish their findings publicly. The Kremlin did not respond to her earlier remarks.
Navalny, widely regarded as the most prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, died in February 2024 at the age of 47 while serving a 19-year sentence for “extremism” in a remote Siberian penal colony known as Polar Wolf, located above the Arctic Circle.
A fierce anti-corruption campaigner, Navalny built a powerful political movement that exposed alleged high-level corruption within Russia’s elite. His investigations and nationwide protests brought hundreds of thousands into the streets, positioning him internationally as the face of Russian opposition politics.
According to BBC News, in 2020, he survived a suspected poisoning involving the Novichok nerve agent, an incident that drew global condemnation. After receiving treatment in Germany, he made the controversial decision to return to Russia in 2021, declaring he would not “give up either my country or my beliefs.” He was arrested immediately upon arrival.
Following his death in custody, Russian authorities initially stated that he had died of natural causes. His body was withheld from his family for days before eventually being released for burial in March 2024. His funeral in Moscow drew thousands of mourners who defied fears of a police crackdown — marking one of the last significant public gatherings of dissent inside Russia.
On Monday, dozens of Muscovites and several foreign diplomats laid flowers at his grave. A handwritten note left among the tributes read: “Alexei, we remember you every day.”
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, repression inside the country has intensified. New laws have criminalized criticism of the government and the military, with harsh prison sentences handed down for anti-war statements or online posts. Many of Navalny’s allies have been jailed, forced into exile, or silenced.
Yulia Navalnaya, now leading her husband’s Anti-Corruption Foundation from abroad, faces arrest if she returns to Russia. Living outside the country with their two children, she has become a symbolic figure for Russia’s fragmented opposition movement in exile.
As the debate over Navalny’s death continues, his family and supporters insist that accountability will one day follow. For now, the questions surrounding his final days remain central to the broader struggle over dissent, justice, and power in modern Russia.
