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A raven has landed with your weekly intelligence briefing. We've sifted through the global noise to bring you only what matters. Prepare for this week's essential developments—distilled, unbiased, and delivered in one swift flight.
Foreign ministries of the U.K., France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned by the Kremlin.
Five European nations announced on Saturday that Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a lethal toxin derived from the skin of South American poison dart frogs.
Laboratory tests on samples taken from Navalny's body confirmed the presence of epibatidine, a neurotoxin that causes paralysis and respiratory arrest.
The foreign ministries of the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands concluded that the Russian state is responsible for administering the poison.
Investigative agencies noted that the toxin is native to South America and does not occur naturally in Russia.
The involved countries are reporting the incident to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons as a violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Navalny died in February 2024 while serving a 19-year sentence in a remote Arctic penal colony.
While the Kremlin has always denied involvement, European officials argue that only the Russian state had the means and opportunity to deploy the toxin in a high-security prison.
Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, stated that the scientific findings provide proof that her husband was murdered with a chemical weapon.
This assessment follows a previous poisoning attempt in 2020 involving a nerve agent that Navalny also attributed to the Kremlin.
European officials expressed high confidence in these results despite the complicated two-year process required to finalize the analysis of the body samples.
Source: Associated Press and The Guardian.
Raven Bites🐦⬛
News/Events/Politics
Israeli forces have killed at least nine Palestinians in new attacks across Gaza, in yet another violation of the United States-brokered “ceasefire” in October, according to medical sources. The attacks on Sunday came as the Israeli military launched several attacks on southern Lebanon, targeting what it called warehouses used by the Hezbollah armed group. (more)
Iran and the United States are presenting clashing views before expected talks as diaspora Iranians rally across the world to demand action after thousands were killed during last month’s nationwide protests. Amid reports that a second round of mediated talks may take place over the coming days, Washington has maintained it wants to limit Iran’s missile programme and end all its nuclear enrichment. (more)
The CIA has published a Mandarin-language recruitment video aimed at Chinese soldiers, in an apparent attempt to capitalise on the recent instability in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) after a series of high-level purges. (more)
Two Mexican Navy ships laden with humanitarian aid dock in Cuba as US blockade sparks energy crisis. (more)
CENTCOM, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East, said U.S. forces hit ISIS infrastructures and weapons storage targets between Feb. 3 and Feb. 12. Ten U.S. military strikes in Syria hit more than 30 Islamic State targets in Syria. (more)
Economics/Business/Crypto
In the U.S., the consumer price index for January accelerated 2.4% from the same time a year ago, down 0.3 percentage point from the prior month and the lowest since May 2025. (more)
Kalshi says Super Bowl trading volume surpassed $1 billion. (more)
Prediction markets head into basketball season on a high from Super Bowl. (more)
Dubai’s DP World replaces CEO, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, after Epstein links emerge. (more)
The pan-European Stoxx 600 closed lower on Friday, after AI fears triggered another sell-off on Wall Street overnight. (more)
Asia-Pacific markets traded lower Friday, tracking Wall Street declines, as fears over artificial intelligence disruption drove the S&P 500 to a third straight day of losses. (more)
$BTC ( ▼ 1.03% ) $BNB ( ▼ 0.36% ) Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has completed the final leg of its plan to convert the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) entirely into bitcoin, closing out a $1 billion transition from stablecoin reserves into BTC. (more)
Technology
Hollywood organizations are pushing back against a new AI video model called Seedance 2.0, which they say has quickly become a tool for “blatant” copyright infringement. (more)
Ring, the Amazon-owned home security company, announced that it will no longer partner with Flock Safety, a maker of AI-powered surveillance cameras that share footage with law enforcement. (more)
Exactly half of xAI’s founding team has left the company. (more)
Discord is rolling out age verification globally starting next month. All users will be put into a “teen-appropriate experience” by default. Only users verified as adults will be able to change certain settings and access age-restricted content. (more)
Threads is introducing an AI-powered feature that lets users personalize their feed, the Meta-owned social network announced. The platform’s new “Dear Algo” feature lets users tell Threads what they temporarily want to see more or less of in their feed. (more)
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