The widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has requested that media outlets cease reporting on a newly released autopsy report detailing his death, according to reports. The request comes as scrutiny intensifies over the circumstances surrounding Navalny’s death in a Russian penal colony on February 16, 2024.
Navalny’s wife responded quickly to the publication of the report, writing on social media X, “Hello, please remove this material completely and never write about Alexey again. Thank you. This is not my personal request, it is a request from our entire family.” She is increasingly seen as a potential future leader of the Russian opposition.
The autopsy documents, shared on Monday by the Russian independent investigative outlet The Insider and its Telegram channel Black Mirror, contain approximately 300 pages of photographs of the body, analyzed samples, and chromatograms. The release of the report adds another layer to the international debate surrounding the cause of Navalny’s death.
According to the forensic files, Russian authorities did not test Navalny for epibatidine, a rare and potent toxin. Several European countries, led by the United Kingdom, believe epibatidine was the cause of his death and accuse the Russian state of being responsible for his poisoning.
The official autopsy protocol states, “The cause of death of A. A. Navalny was a combination of diseases: hypertension with damage to blood vessels and organs, diffuse myocardial sclerosis, complicated by the development of cerebral edema, fibrillation of the ventricles, and pulmonary edema.”
Alexander Polupan, a resuscitation specialist who treated Navalny following a 2020 poisoning, stated that the newly released forensic files contradict the official version of his death. Though, Polupan believes the findings align with the theory of poisoning by epibatidine, a rare toxin derived from the poison dart frog known as *Epipedobates tricolor*.
“The most striking feature of this document is the presence of multiple bleeding in the pancreas and duodenum,” Polupan told The Insider. “This finding contradicts the official diagnosis of sudden cardiac death.”
According to Polupan, there are no documented cases of epibatidine poisoning in humans, but given the similar mechanisms of action of related substances, he believes the changes observed in the body correlate with the effects of poisoning. “Stating sudden cardiac death as the primary cause of death in the presence of a significant alternative pathological process appears unjustified,” he added.
Navalny died in the Polar Wolf penal colony on February 16, 2024. In February of this year, reports emerged that Alexei Navalny was killed by the substance epibatidine. Independent laboratories found traces of the substance. The Kremlin has denied these accusations through spokesperson Dmitry Peskov and Foreign Ministry representative Maria Zakharova.
Previously, journalists at The Insider reported that Vladimir Kondratyev, the head of the institute involved in the development of the Novichok nerve agent (allegedly used to poison Navalny by Russian FSB agents in 2020), published an article in 2014 about testing epibatidine.
Although appearing to study its analgesic effect, The Insider suggests the article’s content indicates it was actually testing methods for its detection. The analgesic effect receives only a few lines, while the majority of the article focuses on the toxic effects of epibatidine, its influence on different routes of administration, and methods for detecting it in the body.
