Dart frog and toxin linked to Alexei Navalny’s death

Dart frog and toxin linked to Alexei Navalny’s death

According to new test results, Russian dissident Alexei Navalny died from the poison of the deadly dart frog, but how exactly did he end his life?

The Russian state is no stranger to accusations of using exotic poisons to kill its enemies.

From the notorious Salisbury Novichok poisonings in 2018 that shook the country and left innocent British citizen Dawn Sturgess dead, to the murder of Putin dissident Alexander Litvinenko with polonium-poisoned tea in London in 2006, he has a clear history of introducing toxic substances into the bodies of his opponents.

Now allies in the UK and Europe have revealed that Russian opposition leader and activist Alexei Navalny likely suffered a similar fate, but this time via a poison they believe is derived from a small rainforest creature: the poison dart frog.

Considered one of the most lethally toxic species on the planet, each poison dart frog is believed to have enough venom to kill between 10 and 20 humans, and just the equivalent of two grains of salt are enough to kill a person.

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According to Dr. Eric Franssen, a doctor in clinical toxicology and pharmacology, dart frog venom could be the perfect poison to take out enemies with minimal detection.

The expert, who works in the clinical pharmacy department of the Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis hospital in the Netherlands, said: “I imagine that these types of poisons are interesting [to Russia] because they are quite difficult to detect.

“Because in hospitals we don’t detect them in a routine toxicological examination. So perhaps this is a way to disguise poisonings.”

However, two years after Navalny’s sudden death in a Siberian penal colony, the United Kingdom and its allies announced that analyzes of samples of material found in his body show that the patriot died from a dose of the lethal substance.

The telltale sign in this case was the presence of the chemical epibatidine in Nalvany’s samples, a toxin that is only present in wild dart frogs from South America and is not found naturally in Russia.

Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper said at the Munich Security Conference that “only the Russian government had the means, the motive and the opportunity” to poison Navalny while he was imprisoned in Russia.

Although it is believed that in this case the poison used to kill Navalny may have been produced in a laboratory, poison dart frogs use the natural toxin to protect themselves from predators.

Once ingested, the powerful substance paralyzes its victim, so it is only a matter of minutes before they succumb to its effects.

Dr Franssen told Sky News: “We don’t know much about these toxins in humans because of course you can’t experiment with these types of toxins in real life, only on animals. But there have been reports that people can die after 10 to 20 minutes of ingesting them when you have a certain amount of these toxins.”

“This can be done by ingestion or injection into the bloodstream. I guess then it has a direct effect on the muscles and the heart. And it paralyzes the muscles, also the respiratory muscles. And then the oxygen level in the blood is very low. And also by heart failure, the brain no longer receives oxygen and this can cause death.”

Evidence that Navalny vomited was photographed at the scene of his death moments after his body was removed, a symptom Dr. Franssen said would likely manifest quickly after exposure.

The new revelation challenges the official Russian version that the cause of Navalny’s death was an episode of high blood pressure caused by a chronic cardiac arrhythmia, something his widow Yulia Navalnaya has always rejected.

Up until the time of his death, Navalny was believed to be in good health despite his imprisonment in the Polar Wolf colony, notorious for its brutal conditions, and appeared in court looking positive the day before his death.

The political dissident and anti-Putin activist had miraculously survived another attempt on his life in 2020, this time with the deadly Novichok nerve agent.

When he returned to Russia in 2021, he was convicted of false charges and imprisoned, spending the last years of his life in prison.

Russia has dismissed these new claims about the cause of his death as an “information campaign.”

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