Wife of Russian dissident Navalny says he was poisoned in prison

Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, said her husband was poisoned to death in 2024 in the penal colony where he was being held.

Laboratories in two countries had independently analysed biological samples smuggled from Russia, Navalnaya said in a video published on YouTube on Wednesday.

"The laboratories in both countries have come to the conclusion: Alexei was killed, specifically poisoned," Navalnaya asserted.

She did not say which laboratories examined her husband's remains or where exactly these were located.

She also did not reveal the exact results of the investigations - for example, which poison was allegedly used to kill her husband at the prison camp. Instead, she demanded the publication of the lab reports.

Navalnaya also levelled accusations at Western politicians, saying they had told her that publication of lab results was being postponed "for political reasons."

Navalny was Putin's best-known critic in Russia. He suffered an earlier poisoning in August 2020. At that time, he narrowly survived an attack with the nerve agent Novichok, which he subsequently blamed on the Russia's FSB secret service.

He was transferred to Germany at Navalnya's request and treated at the Charité hospital in Berlin.

After a period of convalescence in Germany, Navalny returned to Russia in January 2021 and was arrested immediately. He was initially accused of violating reporting requirements from an earlier case.