Alexei Navalny was killed by Russia with dart frog toxin, 5 European countries say
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny attends a rally in support of political prisoners in Prospekt Sakharova Street in Moscow, Russia on September 29, 2019. (Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a rare lethal toxin found in poison dart frogs from South America, according to a joint statement from the UK, France, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany.
The European partners said they are confident in their determination based on analyses of samples from Navalny which confirmed the presence of the lethal toxin, Epibatidine.
“Navalny died while held in prison, meaning Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison to him,” the statement read.
Alexei Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said in a social media post she “was certain from the first day that my husband had been poisoned, but now there is proof: Putin killed Alexei with chemical weapon.”
Navalnaya said she is grateful to the countries who have worked on the investigation.
“Vladimir Putin is a murderer. He must be held accountable for all his crimes,” she said.
Russian officials did not immediately comment on the report.
(LONDON) — American and Ukrainian representatives will continue discussions on a possible framework for a peace deal to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor on Saturday, the State Department said in a statement, following meetings between the two teams in Miami this week.
The office of the spokesperson at the State Department said in a Friday statement that U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner held “constructive discussions” with the Ukrainian delegation this week on “advancing a credible pathway toward a durable and just peace in Ukraine.”
The statement said the two delegations agreed on a framework of security arrangements and necessary deterrence capabilities that the State Department said will lead to a “lasting peace” between Ukraine and Russia.
Friday’s State Department statement provided no further details on the framework of any security arrangement.
Kyiv has long said it cannot accept any peace deal that does not include concrete security guarantees from Western partners, chief among them the U.S. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his government have warned that without such protections, Russia may be emboldened to launch new rounds of aggression in the future.
The U.S. and Ukrainian delegations met in Miami for talks on Thursday and Friday. The teams are set to reconvene on Saturday to “continue advancing the discussions,” the State Department statement said.
The readout said that the Ukrainian delegation — which was led by Rustem Umerov, the secretary of the country’s National Security and Defense Council — “reaffirmed that Ukraine’s priority is securing a settlement that protects its independence and sovereignty, ensures the safety of Ukrainians and provides a stable foundation for a prosperous democratic future.”
The statement also said that the U.S. envoys discussed their recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, plus “steps that could lead to ending this war.”
“Both parties agreed that real progress toward any agreement depends on Russia’s readiness to show serious commitment to long-term peace, including steps toward de-escalation and cessation of killings,” the statement added.
Ahead of the first meeting in Miami on Thursday, Zelenskyy said in a post to social media that his team’s task was “to obtain full information about what was said in Russia and what other pretexts Putin has come up with to drag out the war and to pressure Ukraine,” referring to the visit of Witkoff and Kushner to the Russian capital earlier in the week.
“Ukraine is prepared for any possible developments, and of course we will work as constructively as possible with all our partners to ensure that peace is achieved,” Zelenskyy added. “Only a dignified peace provides real security, and we fully understand that this requires — and will continue to require — the support of our partners.”
The Kremlin’s public statements suggest it is maintaining its maximalist demands, which include Ukraine’s withdrawal from territories still partially under Kyiv’s control in the east of the country. Ukraine has repeatedly dismissed that proposal.
Putin is projecting confidence, last week claiming a “positive dynamic” everywhere on the front despite high rates of Russian casualties — according to Kyiv’s reporting — and slow battlefield progress. Russia, the president said, is “ready in principle” to “fight to the last Ukrainian.”
Both Russia and Ukraine are sustaining their long-range strike campaigns amid the White House’s latest diplomatic push.
Ukraine’s air force said on Saturday morning that Russia launched 653 drones and 51 missiles — 17 of them ballistic missiles — into the country overnight. The air force said 585 drones and 30 missiles were shot down or suppressed. Drone and missile impacts were reported across 29 locations, the air force said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its forces downed at least 121 Ukrainian drones on Friday night into Saturday morning.
A huge banner displayed in Revolution Square depicts a missile attack on board a US Carrier painted in US flag colors in the Persian Gulf on January 26, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. (Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Iranian military forces are prepared to “immediately” retaliate against any U.S. attack, Tehran’s top diplomat warned on Wednesday, as more American military assets arrived in the region and U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to launch a new attack on the country.
Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said in a post to X on Wednesday that Iran’s “brave Armed Forces are prepared — with their fingers on the trigger — to immediately and powerfully respond to ANY aggression against our beloved land, air and sea.”
“Valuable lessons learned” during the 12-day conflict with Israel and the U.S. in June “have enabled us to respond even more strongly, rapidly and profoundly,” Araghchi wrote.
“At the same time, Iran has always welcomed a mutually beneficial, fair and equitable NUCLEAR DEAL — on equal footing, and free from coercion, threats, and intimidation — which ensures Iran’s rights to PEACEFUL nuclear technology, and guarantees NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS,” the foreign minister added.
“Such weapons have no place in our security calculations and we have NEVER sought to acquire them,” he wrote.
Araghchi issued the warning after Trump touted what he called a “massive armada” heading toward Iran, which he said was “ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary.”
Trump urged Iran to make “a fair and equitable deal” regarding its nuclear program, key facilities and personnel of which were among the targets attacked by Israel and the U.S. in June.
“Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal — NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS — one that is good for all parties. Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!,” Trump said a social media post.
Trump referred to the strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites last summer. “As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again,” Trump added.
The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, accompanied by three destroyers, arrived in the Middle East earlier this week, bolstering the U.S. military presence in the region.
The carrier is carrying a complement of strike aircraft, while the accompanying destroyers are armed with Tomahawk missiles.
The naval buildup adds some 5,000 American troops to the region, swelling an already robust American military footprint spread across multiple bases across the Middle East, such as Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
In total, more than 30,000 U.S. troops are deployed across the Middle East. The USS Abraham Lincoln is the first U.S. aircraft carrier to operate in the region since last summer.
Araghchi on Wednesday denied any request for new talks Tehran and Washington, D.C., though said Iran was in touch with “various intermediaries.”
“Our position is clear. Negotiations cannot take place under threats, and any talks must be conducted in conditions where threats and excessive demands are set aside,” Araghchi said.
The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on Thursday that Iran is “ready for sincere and genuine negotiations with America,” as quoted by the state-aligned Tasnim News Agency. Ghalibaf warned that though Trump “may be able to start a war,” he cannot foresee how it will end.
Trump’s latest threats focused on Iran’s nuclear program, which — alongside Tehran’s ballistic missile arsenal and its use of regional proxy forces — has been a key and longstanding concern for the U.S., Israel and their regional partners.
Trump’s Wednesday social media post did not mention Tehran’s bloody suppression of nationwide anti-government protests over the past month. The demonstrations began in late December in response to the collapsing value of the national currency — the rial — before morphing into a wider anti-regime movement which drew backing from dissidents abroad and Western governments.
Trump lent his support to protesters in mid-January, urging them to “KEEP PROTESTING — TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” He added, “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”
The president then appeared to back off the prospect of imminent U.S. strikes on Iran, saying Tehran had informed him that the killing of protesters and executions of those arrested had stopped.
The major security crackdown appears to have suppressed the massed demonstrations. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) — which relies on a network of activists in Iran for its reporting and has been accurate during previous unrest — said Wednesday that at least 6,373 people had been killed in the protests.
The dead included 5,993 protesters, 113 people under the age of 18, 214 government-affiliated personnel and 53 non-protesting civilians, HRANA said. The organization said it is still reviewing 17,091 reports of other deaths.
A total of 42,486 people have been arrested in the demonstrations since they began on Dec. 28, including 11,018 injured protesters with serious wounds, according to HRANA.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a Senate hearing on Wednesday that the U.S. regional buildup represents a “baseline” for defense.
“We have to have enough force and power in the region just on a baseline to defend against that possibility that at some point, as a result of something, the Iranian regime decides to strike at our troop presence in the region,” Rubio said.
Rubio also said that it was an “open question” and “no one knows” who would fill a leadership void in Iran if Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was removed from power.
Rubio asserted that protests across Iran due to a free-falling economy show “that [the] regime is probably weaker than it has ever been.”
If the regime were to fall, he said the U.S. could “hope” for a “transition” like the one it is attempting to facilitate in Venezuela.
But Rubio added that he “would imagine it would be far more complex … because you’re talking about a regime that’s been in place for a very long time.”
View of the Cour Napoleon, a historic courtyard in the Louvre Museum and the Louvre Pyramid in Paris, France on November 12th, 2025. (Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(PARIS and LONDON) — Nobody was monitoring the live feed.
As masked men hacked a hole in a window at the Louvre Museum in Paris in October, a security camera inside the gallery was picking up the spot where they were working, Noel Corbin, the head of France’s inspectorate general of culture told the country’s Senate at a hearing on Wednesday.
As men clambered into the world-famous museum, nobody was actively monitoring that specific feed, legislators were told. And, even as the robbers collected their loot — allegedly stealing French crown jewels worth some $102 million — the security staff at a bank of screens weren’t yet focused on the camera catching the robbery, Corbin said.
The camera’s zoom wasn’t “activated” until 9:38 a.m., about four minutes after the robbery began, the Senate was told. By then, the blink-and-you-miss-it robbery was all but over.
The Senate was told on Wednesday that there had been “insufficient screens” in the security guard’s control room to simultaneously view images from all the cameras in the museum.
While the live video feed from one the Apollo Gallery appeared to have been transmitted during the robbery, it wasn’t immediately clear why it wasn’t among those being monitored remotely by a live person. Another camera near the scene wasn’t working that day, Corbin said.
The latest details on apparent faults in security at the world’s most-visited museum came as the French government and law enforcement sought through a sprawling investigation to understand how those alleged lapses in procedure and equipment may have worked in favor of the robbers.
The robbery suspects fled on motorbikes, police said at the time of the heist. At least seven people have since been arrested, five of whom have been formally charged in connection to the heist, French officials said. But the irreplaceable jewels taken during the Sunday morning heist have not yet been recovered.
The Senate on Wednesday heard new details on what appeared to have happened during the heist, including that there had been “insufficient screens.” That lack of screens had been highlighted in a security audit carried out earlier in the year, one of five such audits that had been carried out in the last decade, the watchdog said.
One of those audits, the one carried out in 2019 by a private auditor, had specifically focused on the Apollo Gallery, the watchdog said, adding that another in 2015 had focused on the museum’s computer systems.
The Senate was told that the findings of those audits included details about security cameras, some of which were described as “obsolete.” It was not immediately clear if the camera faced at the window in the Apollo Gallery was characterized as such.
As the robbery unfolded, the Senate heard on Wednesday, members of a private Securitas security team arrived outside the museum quickly enough that they may have stopped the robbers from lighting their vehicle — a moving ladder — on fire, thus apparently saving crucial evidence that’s led to arrests.
But if they had arrived at least 30 seconds earlier they could have stopped the robbers from escaping, the Senate was told, with the watchdog adding that a quicker viewing of the live feed from the internal security camera might have made the difference.
