Alexei Navalny ally urges Joe Biden to sanction more associates of Vladimir Putin
- ‘The West must sanction the decision makers who have made it national policy to rig elections, steal from the budget, and poison,’ wrote Vladimir Ashurkov
- Tens of thousands of people in cities across Russia took part in mass protests last weekend to demand Navalny be freed
A close ally of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny urged US President Joe Biden to take punitive action against a wider group of associates of President Vladimir Putin, saying current sanctions are not sufficient to stop the Kremlin from cracking down on political opponents and violating human rights.
“Existing sanctions don’t reach enough of the right people,” Vladimir Ashurkov wrote in a letter to Biden posted on his Facebook page on Saturday. He lists 35 people, including billionaires Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov, senior staffers of Putin’s administration, and heads of several state companies, that Navalny says should be targeted.
“Anything less will fail to make the regime change its behaviour,” Ashurkov wrote. “The West must sanction the decision makers who have made it national policy to rig elections, steal from the budget, and poison.” Navalny and his allies also want the US to sanction those who hold their money.
The list includes two billionaires, VTB Bank Chief Executive Officer Andrey Kostin, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko, and prominent adult children of Putin allies. Some of those have already been sanctioned by the US Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who is also listed, did not respond to a request for a comment.
A spokesman for Usmanov declined to comment. Usmanov got into a video spat with Navalny from his 156-metre yacht in 2017 over an investigation into donations to a fund benefiting then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. The billionaire later won a defamation suit against Navalny.