A British-Russian national and opposition activist has alleged there is a state-backed hit squad killing Vladimir Putin’s opponents.

Speaking from behind bars in a video link to court, Vladimir Kara-Murza urged Russians not to give up after Alexei Navalny’s death.

The prominent campaigner, who is serving a 25-year sentence for criticising the war, has brought a case against Russia’s Investigative Committee for failing to look into two poisoning attempts against him.

“We owe it… to our fallen comrades to continue to work with even greater strength and achieve what they lived and died for,” Mr Kara-Murza said in footage shared by the Russian Sota telegram channel.

He alleged there was a “death squad within the Federal Security Service (FSB), a group of professional killers in the service of the state, whose task is to physically eliminate political opponents of the Putin regime”.

Investigative journalists had shown FSB officers participated in Mr Kara-Murza’s poisoning, Mr Navalny’s poisoning in 2020 and the surveillance of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov before he was killed in 2015, Mr Kara-Murza claimed.

He says he was poised in 2015 and 2017, the first almost killing him and the second resulting in a coma.

The Kremlin has previously denied any involvement in the illnesses and deaths of the opposition figures, including Mr Navalny.