The widow of deceased Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny claims to have uncovered new evidence proving her husband was murdered in prison by Vladimir Putin.
Navalny, who for years was considered Putin’s most formidable political opponent, was found dead in mysterious circumstances in February 2024 after being sentenced to 19 years in a notorious Arctic prison on spurious charges.
In a video statement published on Wednesday, Yulia Navalnaya, who now leads her husband’s movement in exile, revealed that before his burial, biological samples were taken from his body and smuggled out of the country for analysis by foreign, independent labs.
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, 2025
“These labs in two different countries reached the same conclusion: Alexei was killed. More specifically, he was poisoned,” Navalnaya announced.
While the lab tests have not yet been made public, Navalnaya said the results were “a matter of public importance and must be published,” stating that “we all need to know the truth.”
Navalnaya also provided a harrowing account of her husband’s final moments, which saw him suddenly collapse after going for a walk, and start vomiting whilst convulsing in pain, she said, citing witness testimony.
But instead of receiving medical aid, Navalny was placed in a punishment cell, and his captors waited for over 40 minutes before calling an ambulance, at which point the opposition leader had already lost consciousness.
“Alexei lay on the floor and pulled his knees up to his stomach and moaned in pain,” she said. “He said his chest and stomach were burning. Then he began to vomit.” She then displayed a picture of the cell her husband is alleged to have died in, which was stained with vomit.
“I assert that Vladimir Putin is responsible for the murder of my husband, Alexei Navalny,” she said in the video. “Stop appeasing Putin for some higher ”considerations.” You cannot placate him. While you stay silent, he doesn’t stop,” she added, in a pointed message to Western politicians.
Back in 2020, Navalny narrowly survived being poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok, which saw him fall seriously ill and slip into a coma on a flight from Siberia to Moscow. It is thought the nerve agent was once again used to poison Navalny in 2024, which ultimately led to his death.
“There’s no question that Alexei Navalny was poisoned,” journalist John Sweeney told Metro in February.
“A detective, Alexander Varapaev, bagged all of Navalny’s stuff after his death, including a copy of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, lots of pills, a breathing mask for his asthma, loo roll, and clothes and coats,” he explained.
“The last items Varapaev logged are swabs and specs of vomit. They never made it into the official list of his possessions. Somebody deletes the references to the vomit.
“Then he writes a report saying Navalny was vomiting and was suffering from severe abdominal pain and convulsions, and loses consciousness. That is all compelling evidence that he was poisoned.”
Although the exact motivation behind Navalny’s alleged poisoning is unclear, one theory is that Putin wanted to prevent his release as part of a prisoner swap with the West.
When asked about Navalnaya’s remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters, “I don’t know anything about these statements of hers, and I can’t say anything.”
The Daily Beast has also contacted Russian government officials for comment.
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