--- title: "February issue Leader" description: "CBRNe World provides those tasked with defending against CBRN and IED threats with the essential practical, scientific and political information. Access the current and previous issues of the magazine by registering as a member." url: "https://cbrneworld.com/news/february-issue-leader" date: "2026-08-20T10:56:06+00:00" language: "en-GB" --- # February issue Leader [Gwyn Winfield](#) Author 18 February 2026 *Due to the timely nature of this incident we thought it worth posting the Leader new, rather than waiting for the whole magazine to come out.* **Leader** The UK sent a rather weird Valentine to Vladimir Putin and the Russian state this year, accusing it of killing Alexei Navalny with an obscure toxin[\[1\]](#_ftn1). You can be forgiven for thinking, ‘haven’t I seen this before?’ as he was previously poisoned by Putin in 2020, on that occasion with an A series agent. Against all advice, Navalny returned to Russia in 2021 and was promptly imprisoned and forced to endure long periods in isolation. In December 2023 he disappeared only to reappear in a far harsher prison camp, Polar Wolf, where he died two months later. Right from the start there was disbelief that despite his poor health he died of natural causes. The Russian state took nine days to release the body, and wanted conditions, met by his mother, on how the cadaver would be treated. It subsequently turns out that at some point after his death a sample was taken, it was analysed by labs in the UK, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands[\[2\]](#_ftn2), confirming that he had been killed by a toxin called epibatidine. The statement made by the UK’s foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, was so much like the statement Theresa May made in the Skripal case, that you know the science behind this was triple checked by multiple labs before she stood up to speak. Epibatidine comes from an Ecuadorian poison dart frog, which, as the name suggests, is not native to Russia. The toxin acts on the nicotinic receptors, and the individual will eventually suffocate to death. In terms of the prison doctor, the toxidromes would all suggest natural causes. So how sure are we that this agent killed Navalny? The body wasn’t released for over a week, and between the body metabolising it and then decaying, how sure can we be that it was this toxin, rather than another that killed him? Thankfully, we were able to ask Brenda Wilson, professor of microbiology at the University of Illinois (see *CBRNe World* 2025-04). “Based on the pharmacological properties of epibatidine and modern forensic toxicology, I think the likelihood of confusing epibatidine with a similar, naturally occurring toxin due to sample delay is extremely low, particularly if the detection was made by western labs specialising in high-sensitivity analysis… If they used high-resolution analytical methods such as liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, then they likely have it correctly identified.” The lethal dose of epibatidine is 2-24μg/kg, and while highly stable in samples that is so incredibly small that it’s easily missed if you are not looking for it. The question that is difficult to answer is why Putin chose to use it over something like fentanyl. Epibatidine is only available in the wild if the tree frog eats the right foods and this has proved impossible in captivity… though that is not to suggest that motivated biologists couldn’t manage it with enough money/time. It has, however, been synthesised, and over the years a variety of derivatives have been created by the pharmaceutical industry, but none of them have been approved as the toxicity was way too high. Compared to fentanyl, which presumably is rife in Russian prisons, it seems like a lot of effort to go to. While exotic, epibatidine is not a showy substance, in the way that A agents are. When Navalny was poisoned the first time there were recordings of him screaming in pain, this time there was nothing so dramatic, just a slowing heart beat followed by a peaceful death. Arguably the same could have been said about fentanyl, with the added advantage of the Russian state being able to smear him as a drug user who ‘got what was coming to him.’ Perhaps the reason why they chose this toxin as opposed to an equally effective poison that is found in prisons is the lack of a medical countermeasure. Navalny had a highly effective support team, and it is not beyond them to have ensured that things like atropine, cyanokit, Prussian blue and naloxone were in the prison hospital. The chances of them having “mecamylamine, a nicotinic acetalcholine receptor antagonist that is nonselective and noncompetitive” \[thanks Prof Wilson!\] on hand for immediate administration is very unlikely. The only thing more obscure than the toxin, is the antidote for it. A small amount of agent, a non-dramatic exit, a nearly non-existent countermeasure and near ignorance of the toxin should have allowed the Kremlin a chance of getting away with murder… again. What does this mean? Russia is now in breach of the Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention, to go along with the Chemical Weapons Convention and the New START nuclear treaty, thanks to its use of the RS-26/Oreshnik. The state is also under sanctions for its actions in Ukraine and the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin. Whereas this might normally seem like a big deal, and it will be for us CBRN nerds, in reality it’s just another log on the bonfire of western rules-based international order. It teaches us that there are very few CBR substances that Russia won’t use to achieve its goals, and that the Kamera[\[3\]](#_ftn3) clearly has a budget and paymasters who are not afraid to use it. The decision as to whether this matters lies with western governments, do they want to increase funding for the laboratories that identify these substances, the forensics/police that take them, and the fire and paramedic services that will keep them safe? The five European signatories to that joint statement need to start properly funding their government labs, as otherwise they may find themselves a weak target and scratching their head the next time a dissident dies. --- [\[1\]](#_ftnref1) [\[2\]](#_ftnref2) [\[3\]](#_ftnref3) ## Schema ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "News", "item": "https://cbrneworld.com/news" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "February issue Leader", "item": "https://cbrneworld.com/news/february-issue-leader" } ] } ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "NewsArticle", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://cbrneworld.com/news/february-issue-leader" }, "headline": "February issue Leader", "description": "Due to the timely nature of this incident we thought it worth posting the Leader new, rather than waiting for the whole magazine to come out.  Leader The UK sent a rather weird Valentine to Vladimir Putin and the Russian state this year, accusing it of killing Alexei Navalny with an obscure toxin[1]. You can be forgiven for thinking, ‘haven’t I seen this before?’ as he was previously poisoned by Putin in 2020, on that occasion with an A series agent. Against all advice, Navalny returned to Russia in 2021 and was promptly imprisoned and forced to endure long periods in isolation. In December 2023 he disappeared only to reappear in a far harsher prison camp, Polar Wolf, where he died two months later. Right from the start there was disbelief that despite his poor health he died of natural causes. The Russian state took nine days to release the body, and wanted conditions, met by his mother, on how the cadaver would be treated. It subsequently turns out that at some point after his death a sample was taken, it was analysed by labs in the UK, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands[2], confirming that he had been killed by a toxin called epibatidine. The statement made by the UK’s foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, was so much like the statement Theresa May made in the Skripal case, that you know the science behind this was triple checked by multiple labs before she stood up to speak. Epibatidine comes from an Ecuadorian poison dart frog, which, as the name suggests, is not native to Russia. The toxin acts on the nicotinic receptors, and the individual will eventually suffocate to death. In terms of the prison doctor, the toxidromes would all suggest natural causes. So how sure are we that this agent killed Navalny? The body wasn’t released for over a week, and between the body metabolising it and then decaying, how sure can we be that it was this toxin, rather than another that killed him? Thankfully, we were able to ask Brenda Wilson, professor of microbiology at the University of Illinois (see CBRNe World 2025-04). “Based on the pharmacological properties of epibatidine and modern forensic toxicology, I think the likelihood of confusing epibatidine with a similar, naturally occurring toxin due to sample delay is extremely low, particularly if the detection was made by western labs specialising in high-sensitivity analysis… If they used high-resolution analytical methods such as liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, then they likely have it correctly identified.” The lethal dose of epibatidine is 2-24μg/kg, and while highly stable in samples that is so incredibly small that it’s easily missed if you are not looking for it. The question that is difficult to answer is why Putin chose to use it over something like fentanyl. Epibatidine is only available in the wild if the tree frog eats the right foods and this has proved impossible in captivity… though that is not to suggest that motivated biologists couldn’t manage it with enough money/time. It has, however, been synthesised, and over the years a variety of derivatives have been created by the pharmaceutical industry, but none of them have been approved as the toxicity was way too high. Compared to fentanyl, which presumably is rife in Russian prisons, it seems like a lot of effort to go to. While exotic, epibatidine is not a showy substance, in the way that A agents are. When Navalny was poisoned the first time there were recordings of him screaming in pain, this time there was nothing so dramatic, just a slowing heart beat followed by a peaceful death. Arguably the same could have been said about fentanyl, with the added advantage of the Russian state being able to smear him as a drug user who ‘got what was coming to him.’ Perhaps the reason why they chose this toxin as opposed to an equally effective poison that is found in prisons is the lack of a medical countermeasure. Navalny had a highly effective support team, and it is not beyond them to have ensured that things like atropine, cyanokit, Prussian blue and naloxone were in the prison hospital. The chances of them having “mecamylamine, a nicotinic acetalcholine receptor antagonist that is nonselective and noncompetitive” [thanks Prof Wilson!] on hand for immediate administration is very unlikely. The only thing more obscure than the toxin, is the antidote for it. A small amount of agent, a non-dramatic exit, a nearly non-existent countermeasure and near ignorance of the toxin should have allowed the Kremlin a chance of getting away with murder… again. What does this mean? Russia is now in breach of the Biological and Toxins Weapons Convention, to go along with the Chemical Weapons Convention and the New START nuclear treaty, thanks to its use of the RS-26/Oreshnik. The state is also under sanctions for its actions in Ukraine and the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin. Whereas this might normally seem like a big deal, and it will be for us CBRN nerds, in reality it’s just another log on the bonfire of western rules-based international order. It teaches us that there are very few CBR substances that Russia won’t use to achieve its goals, and that the Kamera[3] clearly has a budget and paymasters who are not afraid to use it. The decision as to whether this matters lies with western governments, do they want to increase funding for the laboratories that identify these substances, the forensics/police that take them, and the fire and paramedic services that will keep them safe? The five European signatories to that joint statement need to start properly funding their government labs, as otherwise they may find themselves a weak target and scratching their head the next time a dissident dies. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-statement-by-the-uk-sweden-france-germany-and-the-netherlands-on-alexei-navalnys-death [2] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-statement-by-the-uk-sweden-france-germany-and-the-netherlands-on-alexei-navalnys-death [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/09/russia-lab-x-poison-factory-that-helped-silence-soviets-critics", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://cbrneworld.com/" }, "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "CBRNe World Magazine", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://cbrneworld.com/images/default/Asset%201.png" } }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Gwyn Winfield", "url": "https://cbrneworld.com/news/february-issue-leader" }, "datePublished": "2026-02-18T11:21:07+00:00", "dateCreated": "2026-02-18T11:21:07+00:00", "dateModified": "2026-02-23T15:35:42+00:00" } ```