Navalny poisoning: UK imposes sanctions on Russians

LONDON: Britain is imposing sanctions on six Russians who the government says are linked to the poisoning of opposition leader, Alexei Navalny.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the six, including the director of the Federal Security Service, would face asset freezes and travel bans in line with sanctions imposed by the EU.

The move follows confirmation by the international watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, that Navalny had been poisoned by a Soviet-era nerve agent from the Novichok group.

The findings backed those from laboratories in France, Sweden and Germany where Navalny was treated after falling ill on a Russian domestic flight in August.

In a statement, Raab said: “Together with our international partners, we are sanctioning those responsible for the criminal poisoning of Alexei Navalny. Any use of chemical weapons by the Russian state violates international law. We are determined to hold those responsible to account.” Raab said the sanctions were also being extended to cover Russia’s State Scientific Research Institute for Organic Chemistry and Technology. A seventh Russian, Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin, is being sanctioned over “significant foreign mercenary activity” in Libya as well as “multiple breaches” of the UN arms embargo.

The six sanctioned are: Aleksandr Vasilievich Bortnikov; Pavel Anatolievich Popov; Aleksei Yurievich Krivoruchko; Andrei Veniaminovich Yarin; Sergei Vladilenovich Kiriyenko; Sergei Ivanovich Menyailo, the plenipotentiary representative of the President in the Siberian Federal District.