EU imposes sanctions against Russia over Navalny's death

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Commemoration of Alexei Navalny in front of the Russian Embassy in Vienna on March 1st

Photo: Andreas Stroh / IMAGO

Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny died in a prison camp in mid-February.

The EU has now imposed sanctions in response.

As the dpa news agency reports, the foreign ministers of the member states agreed on punitive measures against representatives of the Russian justice system at a meeting in Brussels.

Germany and the other 26 EU states accuse Putin and the Russian authorities of being to blame for the politician's death.

Navalny's widow, Julija Navalnaya, believes that her husband was murdered in the camp.

The opposition activist Navalny, who was sentenced to a long prison sentence, died in a prison camp in Siberia in mid-February.

The circumstances of his death are still unclear to this day.

According to authorities, Putin's harshest critic collapsed at the age of 47 during a tour of the icy prison yard.

Attempts at resuscitation were unsuccessful.

The new EU punitive measures are to be imposed using a sanctions instrument to punish serious human rights violations.

Affected people are no longer allowed to enter the EU and no longer do business with EU citizens.

In addition, their EU accounts and other assets must be frozen.

According to information from EU circles, a double-digit number of representatives of the justice system are said to be affected.

According to the plans, their names are to be published in the EU Official Journal in the coming days after a formal sanctions decision has been made.

EU wants to name its sanctions instrument after Navalny

Plans by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also envisage renaming the EU sanctions instrument for punishing serious human rights violations after Navalny in the future.

This step is intended to be a way to keep Navalny's memory alive.

The EU states recently decided on new sanctions against Russia on the second anniversary of the war in Ukraine.

The measures targeted 106 individuals and 88 entities responsible for actions that undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.

These included people involved in arms sales from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to Russia, as well as the North Korean defense minister.

There have been far-reaching economic sanctions for a long time, such as import bans on crude oil, coal, steel, gold and luxury goods as well as punitive measures against banks and financial institutions.

mgo/dpa