HRF calls for justice in wake of confirmation Alexei Navalny was poisoned

NEW YORK (Sept. 17, 2025) — The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) condemns Vladimir Putin’s regime for the assassination of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, whose death at Penal Colony No. 3 (“Polar Wolf”) in the Russian Arctic has now been confirmed by laboratory analysis to have resulted from poisoning.

HRF Chair Yulia Navalnaya announced today that biological samples from her late husband were secretly secured and transferred abroad in February 2024. Laboratories in two different countries examined these samples and reached the same conclusion: Alexei Navalny was poisoned.

“My husband, Alexei Navalny, was poisoned. These are not empty words. I have every reason to say this,” Yulia Navalnaya said. “In February 2024, we were able to obtain samples of Alexei’s biological material and securely smuggle them to labs in at least two countries, which examined these samples independently of each other. In these labs, in two different countries, they reach[ed] the same conclusion: Alexei was killed.”

Alexei Navalny, who previously survived a 2020 Novichok poisoning, was the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) and Russia’s most prominent opposition figure. He exposed systemic corruption of Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship and inspired millions to demand change. In 2018, he sought to run for president but was illegally barred from the ballot to prevent him from challenging Putin directly. For his activism, he endured years of persecution, imprisonment, and repeated solitary confinement in a remote prison in the Russian Arctic, where he was ultimately assassinated.

According to testimonies from prison staff, Navalny suffered convulsions, chest and stomach pain, and violent vomiting before being left alone in his punishment cell without urgent medical help. Surveillance cameras that had monitored him constantly for three and a half years suddenly produced no footage from the day of his death.

However, despite frequent media reporting on the issue, neither the international community has mounted a decisive response, nor the laboratories have made their findings public, thus enabling the Kremlin to evade accountability for Navalny’s murder.

“I demand that the labs that conducted the analysis publish their results,” Yulia Navalnaya added. “I demand full public disclosure of the results, showing exactly what poison was used against my husband, Alexei Navalny. We all deserve to know.”

“Today’s devastating confirmation leaves no room for doubt: Alexei Navalny was murdered, with cruelty and deliberation, by Vladimir Putin’s criminal regime,” said HRF Founder and CEO Thor Halvorssen. “Vladimir Putin feared Alexei Navalny — he feared his courage, his vision for a free Russia, and above all, the truths he exposed about the criminal kleptocracy of Russia’s dictatorship. The revelation of the murderous poisoning underscores that the Kremlin will pursue its enemies with limitless brutality so long as it is permitted to act without consequence. HRF renews its demand for justice for Alexei Navalny as we honor his indomitable spirit and the cause of freedom for which he gave his life.”

HRF requests that the laboratories that conducted these examinations publish their full findings. In light of this newly obtained evidence confirming that Alexei Navalny was poisoned, the international democratic community must move beyond words of sympathy and apply maximum, coordinated pressure on Vladimir Putin’s regime to ensure it is held fully accountable for this premeditated assassination.

The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a focus on closed societies.
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