US sanctions seven Russian officials over Alexei Navalny poisoning attack
- The Kremlin critic, who is now behind bars, was poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent developed by Soviet researchers
- The move is Biden’s first major action against Moscow since he became US president
In his first major action against Russia since taking office, President Joe Biden’s administration said it was freezing any US assets and criminalising transactions with seven senior Russians including the director of the FSB security service.
US intelligence assessed “with high confidence” that officers of the FSB, successor to the KGB, poisoned Navalny with the nerve agent Novichok on August 20, 2020, a US official told reporters.
Navalny was flown to Germany for treatment but defiantly returned in January, only to be arrested and then sent to a penal colony after spurring massive rallies through his allegations of corruption by Putin.
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US and EU sanction seven Russian officials over Alexei Navalny poisoning
“The US government has exercised its authorities to send a clear signal that Russia’s use of chemical weapons and abuse of human rights have severe consequences,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
“We reiterate our call for the Russian government to immediately and unconditionally release Mr Navalny,” he said.
The announcement comes one day after EU member states approved a fresh round of sanctions over treatment of Navalny. The bloc had already in October targeted the FSB chief, Alexander Bortnikov, among others on the US list.
Officials newly targeted on Tuesday by both the United States and European Union included Alexander Kalashnikov, the administrator of Russia’s prisons.
The Kremlin has denied responsibility over Navalny’s ill health and on Tuesday asked Western powers what they would achieve through sanctions.
“The answer will be obvious: such a policy does not achieve its goals,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking on a visit to Uzbekistan, warned of reprisals, saying that one rule of diplomacy “is the principle of reciprocity”.
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The Biden administration has vowed to work more closely with allies and to take a harder line than defeated president Donald Trump, who voiced admiration for Putin even though he signed off on some sanctions on Russia.
The Biden team has also made clear it is not attempting another “reset” in relations of the sort initially attempted by former president Barack Obama.
Biden at the same time quickly extended New START, the last major nuclear reduction treaty between the Cold War powers.
“We’re not seeking to escalate, we’re not seeking to reset; we are seeking stability and predictability and areas of constructive work with Russia where it’s in our interest to do that,” a senior official told reporters.
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Russian police detains thousands of Navalny supporters during protests from Moscow to Vladivostok
Officials said that the United States would in the coming weeks also roll out intelligence assessments on other points of concern with Russia.
The rows include allegations that Russia paid Taliban-linked militants bounties to kill US troops in Afghanistan, and early indications that Moscow was behind the massive SolarWinds hack that devastated US agencies and businesses.
Navalny, 44, fell violently ill when he was taking a domestic flight.
The doctors treating him in Germany said he had been poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent developed by Soviet researchers and which was also blamed in a 2018 attack in England against Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
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Navalny was sent to a penal colony east of the Russian capital after a judge ruled that, in going to Germany, he violated the terms of parole in a suspended sentence over a 2014 fraud case, which critics say was trumped up.
Navalny has persisted in needling Putin, releasing a viral video that purported to show a palatial Black Sea residence belonging to the president, who was forced to deny publicly that it was his.