Russia rejects claims of poisoning Navalny with dart frog toxin

The Kremlin has "strongly" rejected an assessment by five European countries that the Russian state killed jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny by poisoning him. Navalny, President Vladimir Putin's fiercest domestic opponent for years, died in an Arctic prison colony on February 16, 2024 while serving a 19-year sentence for "extremism", a charge he and his supporters said was punishment for his opposition work. "We naturally do not accept such accusations. We consider them biased and baseless," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters during a daily briefing call on Monday. "In fact, we strongly reject them," he added.