Navalny Was Killed With a Toxin From an Ecuadorian Frog, Five European Nations Confirm

An Ecuadorian frog is now at the center of one of the biggest geopolitical stories of 2026.

The Announcement

On February 14, 2026, five European nations — the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands — issued a joint statement at the Munich Security Conference confirming that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was killed using epibatidine, a potent neurotoxin derived from a poison dart frog found only in Ecuador and northern Peru.

The foreign ministries stated that analysis of tissue samples covertly taken from Navalny's body and smuggled out of Russia "conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine." The five countries accused Russia of having "the means, motive, and opportunity" to administer the poison and have reported Moscow to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) for breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

The Ecuador Connection

Epibatidine is a chlorinated alkaloid first identified by American chemist John Daly in 1974 but not fully characterized until 1992. It is produced naturally by Anthony's poison arrow frog (Epipedobates anthonyi), a small, brightly colored species endemic to the southwestern Andes of Ecuador — specifically the provinces of El Oro, Azuay, and Loja — and a narrow strip of northwestern Peru.

The closely related phantasmal poison frog (Epipedobates tricolor), found in Ecuador's Bolívar and Cotopaxi provinces, also produces the compound. Both species inhabit the leaf litter of tropical and subtropical forests at elevations between 150 and 1,800 meters.

The toxin acts on nicotinic and muscarinic acetylcholine receptors, causing progressive full-body numbness that advances to total paralysis. Death occurs when respiratory failure sets in. European investigators noted that the sophistication required to extract, stabilize, and weaponize epibatidine points to state-level scientific capability.

International Reactions

Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, spoke at the Munich Security Conference: "Two years ago, I came on stage here and said that it was Vladimir Putin who killed my husband. Now it is science-proven."

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking from Slovakia, called the findings "very troubling" and "very serious," adding that Washington is "not disputing" the European assessment.

Russia dismissed the allegations as "a Western propaganda hoax" and what officials called "necro-propaganda."

Context

Navalny survived an earlier poisoning in August 2020 with the nerve agent Novichok, an attack he blamed on the Kremlin. He returned to Russia in January 2021, was immediately arrested, and died in an Arctic penal colony on February 16, 2024, while serving a 19-year prison sentence.

What This Means for Expats

This story doesn't directly affect daily life in Ecuador, but it's worth understanding for several reasons:

• Ecuador's biodiversity is globally significant. The fact that a compound from a tiny Andean frog is now central to an international diplomatic crisis underscores why conservation matters. Anthony's poison arrow frog is classified as "Near Threatened" by the IUCN, with populations declining due to deforestation, mining, and agricultural chemicals — exactly the issues at stake in the current mining law debate
• The frog lives in expat territory. E. anthonyi is found in El Oro, Azuay, and Loja — provinces that include Cuenca's surrounding valleys and the Vilcabamba corridor. You may have walked past its habitat
• Ecuador's scientific heritage. The discovery of epibatidine was a landmark in pharmacology. Before it was weaponized, it was studied as a potential non-opioid painkiller — it's 200 times more potent than morphine. Ecuador's unique flora and fauna continue to yield compounds of extraordinary scientific importance

Sources: PBS NewsHour, NPR, Al Jazeera, Euronews, The Moscow Times, Meduza