In a significant development, Alexei Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, announced on Wednesday, September 17, 2025, that two independent laboratories confirmed her husband was poisoned shortly before his death in a Russian correctional facility.
Navalny, who was a prominent figure known for his relentless campaigns against official corruption and for organizing large-scale anti-Kremlin demonstrations as President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic, passed away in an Arctic penal colony in February 2024. At the time of his death, he was serving a 19-year sentence, which he consistently maintained was politically motivated.
Official statements from authorities indicated that the politician became unwell following a walk, but few specific details regarding his death were ever provided. He was 47 years old.
Through a video message released on Wednesday, Yulia Navalnaya revealed that biological samples from Navalny’s body were transported out of Russia and subsequently analyzed by two separate laboratories located abroad. Both facilities, she stated, definitively concluded that Navalny had been poisoned. However, she noted that neither laboratory has yet made their findings public, attributing this silence to “political considerations.” Ms. Navalnaya did not offer additional evidence or specify the type of poison allegedly used.
“These labs in two different countries reached the same conclusion: Alexei was killed. More specifically, he was poisoned,” Ms. Navalnaya declared in the video, which was widely shared across social media. In the same clip, she highlighted the puzzling absence of video surveillance footage from the prison and presented images she claimed depicted vomit on the floor of Navalny’s cell on the day of his death. Despite these details, she did not provide direct, irrefutable proof that prison authorities orchestrated the poisoning.
Ms. Navalnaya issued a strong call to action: “I demand that the laboratories that conducted the research publish their results. Stop appeasing Putin for some higher considerations. You cannot placate him. While you stay silent, he does not stop.”
She has consistently held President Putin responsible for Navalny’s death, a charge that Russian officials have vehemently denied.
During a press conference held on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated he was unaware of Ms. Navalnaya’s recent declaration and therefore could not offer any comment on the matter.
Prior to this, in August 2024, Ms. Navalnaya had stated that Russian investigators informed her Navalny succumbed to an irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia), a culmination of “a dozen different diseases.” However, she immediately challenged this official narrative, asserting that her husband had no history of heart disease during his lifetime.
This is not the first time Alexei Navalny was targeted by poisoning. In 2020, the opposition leader became gravely ill during an internal flight within Russia. He was subsequently flown to Berlin, still in a coma, for urgent medical treatment. Investigations conducted by laboratories in Germany, France, and Sweden, along with tests performed by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, confirmed that he had been exposed to Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent. Russian authorities have consistently denied any involvement in that incident, a denial Navalny himself often dismissed as false.