Scientific paper trail links the neurotoxin used to kill Alexey Navalny to the same Russian labs implicated in 2020 Novichok attack
The same Moscow-based research center linked to Alexey Navalny’s 2020 poisoning — SC Signal — also played a role in synthesizing the toxin that killed the opposition leader, according to the investigative outlet Agentstvo.
Navalny died in a Russian prison in 2024. Earlier this month, five European countries revealed that he was killed using epibatidine — a deadly neurotoxin that is derived from a South American frog species but can also be produced synthetically.
Agentstvo uncovered a 2015 article in The Russian Chemical Bulletin detailing a method for synthesizing epibatidine. The study’s authors were listed as employees of “High Technologies Laboratory” LLC. However, journalists established that six of the seven co-authors were in fact full-time employees of SC Signal: chemists Igor Babkin, Sergey Galan, Georgy Nazarov, and Alexey Aksyonov; senior research scientist Olga Yudina; and laboratory head Alexey Lamanov. The seventh co-author, Colonel Mikhail Gutsalyuk, heads a research department at a military academy in Kostroma.
Immediately after reports surfaced that Navalny had been poisoned with epibatidine, journalists discovered a 2013–2014 study on the toxin involving staff from Russia’s State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology (GosNIIOKhT). According to The Insider, GosNIIOKhT was officially studying epibatidine as a potential painkiller while covertly testing methods to detect the toxin.
Speaking anonymously, a Russian chemist acquainted with the researchers involved in the study suggested that SC Signal likely produced the epibatidine, noting that Galan and Babkin specialize in this field. “I am almost certain that the Signal center did it,” the source said. “Apparently, at the time, Signal either lacked the facilities or the staff for a preclinical trial, so they outsourced the work to GosNIIOKhT.”
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The Insider notes that one of the 2013–2014 study’s co-authors, then-GosNIIOKhT director Vladimir Kondratyev, is a known chemical weapons specialist. Journalists further linked both GosNIIOKhT and SC Signal to the August 2020 Novichok attack on Navalny, pointing out that both institutes contributed to the nerve agent’s development. According to The Insider, phone records show that during the period of Navalny’s poisoning, Kondratyev was in regular contact with SC Signal director Artur Zhirov, who personally synthesized the batch of Novichok used in the attack.
Looking more closely at the scientists behind the 2015 study, Agentstvo found that Babkin had previously co-authored a patent with the Russian Defense Ministry’s 27th Scientific Center. The patent describes a method for producing a kappa-opioid agonist — a compound in the same class as the toxic chemical agents Russian security forces used during the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis. At least 130 hostages died in that siege, largely due to the mixture of carfentanil and remifentanil pumped into the building.
Furthermore, Galan and Nazarov are experts in nanoencapsulation, a process of coating active substances in a microscopic protective shell. While commonly used in drug delivery, this technology is also believed to have been used to stabilize Novichok. Another co-author, Aksyonov, specializes in extracting compounds from exotic plants.
On February 24, an appeals court in Saratov upheld the dismissal of a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Navalny’s mother against Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service. Lyudmila Navalnaya alleged medical negligence, arguing that her son’s official cause of death — pulmonary edema, heart failure, and pancreatitis — could not have been asymptomatic. The court, however, maintained that the prison provided adequate medical care, noting that Navalny’s only recorded requests for treatment concerned dental issues and back pain.
