Alexei Navalny’s mother hopes for justice as Russia rejects European dart poison test

The mother of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said on Monday that she felt validated by a European to check that his son was poisoned in the desert of punishment. He called for justice as the Russian government rejected Europe’s claim, the Trump administration said there was no reason to doubt it, and supporters of the late man marked two years since his death.

Navalny, a fierce opponent of Russian president Vladimir Putin at home, he died in an arctic prison in February 2024 while serving a 19-year sentence.

Britain, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands issued a joint statement on Saturday saying they believe he was poisoned by epibatidine, a toxin found in poisonous frogs. Their tests are based on samples taken from his body, the statement said.

“This proves what we knew from the beginning. We knew that our son didn’t just die in prison, he was killed,” Navalny’s mother Lyudmila Navalnaya told reporters outside the cemetery where he was buried in Moscow. “I think it will take time, but we will find out who did it. Yes, we want this to happen in our country, and we want justice to happen.”

“In general, we do not accept such accusations. We do not agree with them,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on Monday. “We consider them biased and baseless. And, in fact, we strongly reject them.”

Russian authorities had designated Navalny and his organization as “thugs” before his death, and anyone speaking about him or his exiled anti-corruption foundation will be prosecuted.

Speaking to reporters Sunday during a quick stop in Slovakia, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration “does not disagree” with the European report, which he called “very troubling.”

Rubio said Navalny’s death was “very tragic” and added that the US decision not to include the report “doesn’t mean we are not in agreement with the outcome,” which he called a European-led initiative.

Sometimes countries go out and do their own things based on the intelligence they have gathered, obviously we were aware of this report, it is a troubling report,” he said. “Of course we have no reason to doubt or disagree or argue with these countries about it.”

Russian officials have not released many details about the cause of Navalny’s death.

His widow is Yulia Navalnaya, who lives in exile with a prominent figure a warrant for his arrest in Russiashe said about six months after her husband’s death that she was told by Russian investigators that he died of a combination of “a dozen different diseases,” and that he eventually succumbed to an arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat, after the trip.

Navalnaya said her husband showed no signs of heart disease before he was arrested.

“Russia said Navalny died of natural causes,” European countries said in a statement over the weekend. “But given the toxicity of epibatidine and the reported symptoms, poisoning is likely the cause of his death. Navalny died in custody, which means Russia had the power, motive and opportunity to poison him.”

British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said in a statement that “Russia saw Navalny as a threat” and poisoned him as a show of force.

“By using this type of poison, the Russian regime has demonstrated the despicable tools it has and its fear of political opposition,” Cooper said.

The United Kingdom’s foreign office said that “only the Russian state has the means, motivation and opportunity to use this deadly poison against Navalny” and that they are “responsible for his death.”

Dozens of people visited his grave early Monday, including foreign diplomats, according to an AFP reporter at the scene. Some of those present wore masks or scarves over their faces.

Navalny had waged a war against official corruption for years and staged mass protests against the Kremlin. He had previously been poisoned with a Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok while flying from Moscow to Siberia in 2020, he finally recovered after a long period of treatment in Germany. He told 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl he later believed the poisoning was an assassination attempt orchestrated by Putin – another claim Russian officials have consistently denied.

Navalny returned to Moscow in 2021, knowing what he was facing certain imprisonment. He was convicted three times for different crimes and sentenced to 19 years for crimes related to extremism, which he always dismissed as politically related.

He was put in prison January 2021 and after that he moved about three years later Arctic penal colonywhere he died in February 2024.