EU backs new sanctions against Russia over Alexei Navalny’s death
- EU action targets some 30 people and two entities, including prison and government officials, judges
- Russian authorities say Alexei Navalny died in an Arctic prison on February 16 of natural causes
Foreign ministers of the European Union agreed on new sanctions related to the death of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison last month.
The ministers approved the package during a meeting in Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters Monday.
The restrictive measures include some 30 persons and two entities, according to an earlier draft of the proposal seen by Bloomberg.
The decision comes after Vladimir Putin was declared the winner of a presidential election whose outcome was predetermined. Putin extended his quarter-century rule after winning 87.3 per cent of the vote with no serious challenger in the election.
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Among the proposed listings are several prison and government officials and judges, as well as the IK-3 and IK-6 penal colonies, according to the draft.
The EU approved a modest package of sanctions last month aimed at Moscow, its 13th since Russia invaded Ukraine. Those measures focused on enforcing existing restrictions.
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Navalny’s allies had called on people to protest Putin’s election by turning up at noon on Sunday. Long lines formed at that time outside some polling stations, including in Moscow and St Petersburg, in a symbolic show of defiance amid the harshest Kremlin crackdown on dissent in decades.
Navalny rose to prominence during massive pro-democracy protest in Russia in 2011-2012. The Kremlin critic was barred from running in a 2018 presidential ballot because of a fraud conviction that the US and EU criticised as politically motivated.
He fell ill in August 2020 on a flight to Moscow after meeting with local activists in the Siberian city of Tomsk.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, an international watchdog, confirmed that a nerve agent from the banned Novichok group had been used in the poisoning.
The opposition leader was transferred to a remote Arctic prison colony, IK-3, in late December from a jail outside Moscow. In his last post on X, formerly Twitter, on February 14, he reported that he’d been sentenced to 15 days in a punishment cell for the fourth time since he’d arrived there.
Russian authorities say Navalny died in prison on February 16 of natural causes.
Navalny’s wife Yulia Navalnaya has accused Putin of having him killed. Western leaders have said Putin and the Russian state are ultimately responsible for his death.
Separately, the EU also approved new sanctions on Hamas leaders and violent Israeli settlers, Borrell said, without providing additional details.
Additional reporting by Reuters
