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Brussels (AP) - The EU is imposing sanctions against high-ranking Russian state officials for the imprisonment of the Kremlin critic Alexej Navalny.

A corresponding legal act was passed in writing on Tuesday and is to be published shortly in the EU Official Journal, as the German Press Agency learned from diplomats in Brussels.

The Russian attorney general Igor Krasnow and the head of the central investigation committee Alexander Bastrykin are affected.

In addition, the sanctions are directed against the head of the prison service, Alexander Kalashnikov, and the commander of the National Guard, Viktor Solotov.

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A new sanction instrument created last year was used for the first time to impose EU penalties.

This makes it possible to freeze existing assets in the EU of actors who commit serious human rights violations or who benefit from them.

In addition, EU entry bans are imposed.

According to information from EU circles, the USA also wants to impose sanctions on Tuesday because of the actions of Russian authorities against Navalny.

The opposition politician Navalny was sentenced to camp detention in Moscow at the beginning of February.

He is said to have violated probation requirements several times in an earlier criminal case in 2014 for fraud and misappropriation of funds.

The EU considers the judgment inadmissible because Navalny had to be treated in Germany for several months after a nerve poison attack on him.

She suspects that the opposition politician should be politically sidelined.

Because of the attack on Navalny on August 20, 2020,

the EU had already imposed entry and property bans on people suspected of being responsible in the vicinity of President Vladimir Putin last year.

In Brussels, it is assumed that state authorities in Russia are behind the attack.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210302-99-655645 / 3