Alexei Navalny's widow says he was poisoned, contradicting Kremlin

• Navalny was imprisoned on trumped-up charges after exposing corruption in Putin's inner circle and organizing a movement against him.
• In 2024, the Russian penitentiary service claimed Navalny lost consciousness while walking in the Arctic penal colony where he was being held.

Driving the news: His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said in a video shared to social media Wednesday that labs in "at least two countries" separately examined "smuggled" samples of Navalny's biological material and concluded he had been poisoned.

• "There is no legal ground to share these test results, but I have grounds, not legal ones, but moral ones," she said. "Alexei was my husband. He was my friend. He was a symbol of hope for our country."
• She demanded the labs that conducted the analysis publish the results.

The other side: Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said at a press conference Wednesday that he was not aware of Navalnaya's statement and declined to comment, the Associated Press reported.

• The Kremlin has previously dismissed accusations that it was responsible for Navalny's death.

Catch up quick: Navalny was poisoned and nearly died in 2020. He fell ill on a domestic flight in Russia after being exposed to Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent that had been used in other Russian attacks.

• Navalnaya said last year that a Russian investigation found her husband had died from a combination of diseases — but she denounced that conclusion as false.

Go deeper: How Navalny became Putin's biggest political foe