Due to the persecution of opposition politician Alexei Navalny, the European Union imposed sanctions against Russian officials, a message about them was published in the official EU journal.
EU and US imposed sanctions on Russian officials
The prosecutor general of Russia Igor Krasnov, the head of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin, the director of the Federal Penitentiary Service Alexander Kalashnikov and the head of the National Guard Viktor Zolotov fell under the sanctions. They will be banned from entering the EU, and their assets in the EU will be frozen.
Then the US imposed sanctions against Russia «within the framework of the American law on the control over chemical and biological weapons and the ban on their use of 1991 in connection with the situation around Alexei Navalny.» The Ministry of Finance has published a list of 7 high-ranking officials against whom Washington has imposed sanctions.
It:
FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov;
First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation Sergey Kiriyenko;
Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov;
head of the Federal Penitentiary Service Alexander Kalashnikov;
Head of the Russian President’s Department for Domestic Policy Aggoey Yarin;
Deputy Defense Minister of the Russian Federation Alexei Krivoruchko;
Deputy Defense Minister of the Russian Federation Pavel Popov.
The measures also concern the 27th Scientific Center of the Russian Ministry of Defense, the 33rd Central Scientific Research Institute of the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology (GosNIIOKhT).
In addition, the United States imposed sanctions against 14 organizations from Russia, Germany and Switzerland «for the production of biological and chemical weapons», 9 of them are Russian commercial companies.
“All of these parties are involved in different aspects of the production of biological weapons and chemical [weapons] elements,” Washington said.
American intelligence directly accused the FSB of poisoning Navalny with Novichok. The White House has announced that it does not intend to seek a reset in relations with Russia. At the same time, the United States will not curtail cooperation with the Russian Federation on strategic stability, despite plans to increase pressure on Moscow.
New US sanctions on Navalny include export and visa restrictions. For example, the United States puts Russia on the list of countries that are denied the export of defense technologies, and imposes a ban on the provision of loans to Russia by American government financial organizations, including an export-import bank. And they stop providing assistance to Russia, with the exception of urgent humanitarian aid.
The Russian Foreign Ministry called on the United States «not to play with fire.» And they said that the response to US sanctions would not necessarily be symmetrical.
