MOSCOW, Feb 18 (Reuters) – Russia is demanding that European countries who accused Moscow of poisoning Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny with a dart frog toxin provide concrete data to support their allegation, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.
Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said on Saturday that analyses of samples from Navalny’s body had confirmed the presence of epibatidine, a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America and not found naturally in Russia. They said Moscow had the “means, motive and opportunity” to administer the poison to him.
“All the accusations against Russia were of the ‘highly likely’ variety. There were no specific details. It was purely a proclamation to become the opening act of the Munich (security) conference and to overshadow the Epstein files,” Zakharova told a news briefing on Wednesday.
“We demand they hand over concrete data on this issue.”
The Kremlin flatly rejected the European accusations, while Yulia Navalnaya, the late politician’s widow, said the truth about her husband’s death had finally been disclosed.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov, Writing by Felix LightEditing by Andrew Osborn)
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