The United States and the European Union are expected to impose coordinated sanctions on Russia as early as Tuesday for the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his arrest and detention, said three sources familiar with the planning.
The sources spoke on condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The sanctions will be the first to hit Moscow since Joe Biden became president and opened a comprehensive review of US-Russia policy, including the Kremlin’s actions against Navalny, interference in the US elections, Solar Winds hack and reports of rewards offered to people linked to the Taliban. groups targeting US forces in Afghanistan. The Trump administration refused to take action against Russia for the attempted assassination of Navalny.
The United States must use legal authorities to impose sanctions on Russia for using a nervous chemical agent against Navalny in August, said a senior government official, a congressional aide and a Western diplomat. Toxicological tests conducted in Germany, France and Sweden and by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons found that Navalny was poisoned with a new form of the nervous agent Novichok, in violation of the International Chemical Weapons Convention. The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the attack.
Upon returning to Russia in January, Navalny was arrested and sentenced to more than two years in prison. He was transferred to a penal colony.
The EU took action against Russia for poisoning Navalny, restricting travel and freezing the assets of six Russians in October, but this week’s sanctions would be the first to be issued under the new EU human rights regime.
EU Foreign Minister Josep Borrell told the Atlantic Council last week that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had asked the EU to coordinate the new sanctions with the United States. The EU procedural vote to formally adopt sanctions will end at noon on Tuesday, Brussels time.
“I would not like to talk about any measures that we may have come, but suffice it to say that we have been coordinating very closely,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Monday about US-US cooperation. HUH. Price did not elaborate on the timing of the sanctions, but added: “We are working on this as an urgent challenge.”
An investigation by UN experts released Monday found that the attack on Navalny fits into a broader trend, seen over several decades, of arbitrary murders and assassination attempts on Russian citizens and government critics, both within Russia. and extraterritorially.
