“We knew that our son was killed”: Navalny's mother's reaction after the report showing that he was poisoned

The mother of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny said on Monday that the assessment that her son died after being poisoned by a toxin extracted from a poisonous species of frog confirms her belief that he was killed, notes the BBC.

On Saturday, Britain and four other European allies said in a joint statement that Navalny, who died in 2024, was killed with a toxic substance developed on the basis of a toxin from a species of poisonous frog. According to the statement, “only the Russian state had the means, motive and opportunity to use this lethal toxin.”

“This confirms what we knew from the beginning. We knew that our son didn't just die in prison, he was killed,” Liudmila Navalnaya said Monday at her son's grave in Moscow, two years after his death.

Russia has strongly denied the allegations.

“Of course, we do not accept such accusations. We do not agree with them, we consider them biased and unfounded. In fact, we categorically reject them,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

And Navalnî's widow, Iulia Navalnaia, marked two years since his death, writing in a post on social networks: “We have obtained the truth and one day we will also obtain justice.”

She previously said that analysis of biological samples smuggled out of Russia by laboratories in two countries showed that her husband was “murdered” and called on those institutions to release the results.

The Kremlin did not comment on his statements at the time.

Dozens of Moscow residents, as well as several foreign diplomats, went to the Borisovskoe cemetery on Monday, where they laid flowers at Navalnyi's grave. He was 47 when he died in the penal colony in Siberia, where he was serving a 19-year sentence for “extremism”.

A vehement and charismatic critic of President Vladimir Putin, he has campaigned to denounce high-level government corruption, drawing hundreds of thousands of people into the streets and becoming known abroad as Russia's main opposition leader.

In 2020, he survived an alleged poisoning with the neurotoxic agent Novichok, for which he received treatment in a hospital in Germany. He returned to Russia the following year, saying he did not want to “give up either my country or my beliefs.”

He was arrested upon arrival. A little over a year later, he died in the penitentiary colony “Polar Wolf”, located above the Arctic Circle.

At the time, the Kremlin claimed that Navalny had died of natural causes. Although authorities initially refused to hand over the body, it was eventually buried in Moscow in March 2024.