Should the UK be ready for chemical warfare with Moscow?
This Is Why
Sky News
4.0 • 552 Ratings
🗓️ 16 February 2026
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Kremlin has denied using a dart frog toxin to kill Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2024.
But Britain and four European allies say they have evidence that points to the use of the forbidden chemical agent.
Why did the allies choose the Munich security conference to make this point? And how has Moscow responded to the claims?
Gareth is joined by Hamish de Bretton-Gordon - former head of British Army’s chemical weapons unit - and defence analyst Michael Clarke to discuss whether Russia wanted the world to know how they carried out Navalny’s death and ask should the UK be ready for chemical warfare with Russia?
Producer: Tom Gillespie and Emily Hulme
Editor: Philly Beaumont
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Sky News, the full story first. |
| 0:09.0 | Coming up on the Daily with me, Gareth Barlow, another Putin critic has been poisoned, |
| 0:13.8 | and Russia has also been using toxic gas on the battlefield. |
| 0:18.1 | So, should the UK be ready for chemical warfare with Russia? |
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| 1:26.9 | Death by Frog isn't the most normal way to go, but then again, Alexei Navalny isn't your average murder victim. |
| 1:33.7 | He was a former Russian opposition leader and a huge critic of the Russian president of Vladimir Putin. |
| 1:42.8 | It all seems that, unfortunately, perhaps unsurprisingly, Putin is developing new programs of chemical weapons, which are forbidden, and of course they deny everything which is typical of the Kremlin. |
| 1:53.0 | This all comes on the second anniversary of the confirmation of Alexei Navali's death in a prison cell in Siberia. |
| 1:59.3 | And this week, the UK Foreign Secretary said this. |
| 2:02.1 | We have together found the evidence of this lethal toxin that was found in Alexei Navalny's body |
... |
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