UK/US Impose Sanctions on Russian Intelligence Agents Over Navalny Poisoning

Britain and the United States imposed sanctions on Friday on men they said were Russian intelligence operatives responsible for the poisoning one year ago of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

The two countries both targeted seven Russians with sanctions and also issued a joint statement warning Russia over chemical weapons.

Washington separately imposed sanctions on another two men and four Russian institutes it said were involved in chemical weapons research or what it described as an assassination attempt against Navalny.

Navalny was flown to Germany for medical treatment after being poisoned in Siberia on Aug. 20 last year with what Western experts concluded was the military nerve agent Novichok.

Moscow has rejected their findings and accused the West of a smear campaign against it.

An updated version of the British sanctions list published by the government on the first anniversary of Navalny’s poisoning included seven new names.

“The sanctioned individuals are directly responsible for planning or carrying out the attack on Mr Navalny,” a Foreign Office statement said.

British foreign minister Dominic Raab said the move was a warning to Russia. “We are sending a clear message that any use of chemical weapons by the Russian state violates international law, and a transparent criminal investigation must be held.”

Russian Foreign Ministrys spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on social media that the “unilateral sanctions are illegitimate as they have not been approved by the UN Security Council”.

“Russia has destroyed the chemical weapons arsenal in line with international obligations it has taken upon itself. You can’t say the same about the NATO countries, for example, the USA,” she said.

The sanctions will affect those people named who have overseas assets.

The U.K. document listed Alexey Alexandrov, Vladimir Panyaev, Ivan Osipov, Vladimir Bogdanov, Kirill Vasilyev, Stanislav Makshakov and Alexei Sedov. It said they were all members of Russia’s FSB security service and were either directly or indirectly involved in the poisoning.

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