The United Kingdom has confirmed that the former leader of the Russian opposition, Alexei Navalny, was poisoned in prison.

The British Foreign Office announced today that Alexei Navalny, the leader of the Russian opposition, was killed with a toxin called epibatidine, a substance extracted from the skin of the Ecuadorian poison frog Epipedobates tricolor. The substance is known to be a powerful agonist of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, and is 200-500 times more potent than morphine.

Two years after his death in a penal colony in Siberia, Britain and its allies have accused the Kremlin, relying on the analysis of samples taken from his body. British officials emphasize that there is no innocent explanation for the presence of this toxin in the analyzed samples. At the Munich Security Conference, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper stated that only the Russian government had the means, motive, and opportunity to use this deadly toxin against Navalny.