U.S., EU announce sanctions on Russian officials in poisoning, jailing of Alexei Navalny
Biden campaigned on promise to be more forceful with Russia than Trump administration
U.S. President Joe Biden's administration announced sanctions on Russian officials and businesses Tuesday for a nearly fatal nerve-agent attack against opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his subsequent jailing.
The U.S. co-ordinated the penalties with the European Union, which already had imposed sanctions against a small number of Russian officials in Navalny's case.
The Biden administration also announced sanctions under the U.S. Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act for 14 businesses and another enterprise, most of which it said were involved in the production of biological and chemical agents.
The U.S. intelligence community concluded with high confidence that Russia's Federal Security Service used the Russian nerve agent Novichok on the dissident last August, a senior administration official said.
Tuesday's sanctions are the first against Russia by the Biden administration. They would be the first of several steps that aim to "respond to a number of destabilizing actions," said an administration official, who briefed reporters on the condition they not be identified further.
The Biden administration has pledged to confront Russia's President Vladimir Putin for alleged attacks on Russian opposition figures and hacking abroad, including of U.S. government agencies and U.S. businesses.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump had spoken admiringly of Putin, and resisted criticism and many proposed penalties of Putin's government.
Today, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russia for attempting to assassinate Aleksey Navalny with a novichok nerve agent. Any use of chemical weapons is unacceptable. We stand with our EU and UK partners to counter Russia’s actions and in calling for Mr. Navalny’s release.
—@SecBlinkenThe 27-nation European bloc imposed bans on travel and froze the assets in Europe of Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation; Igor Krasnov, the prosecutor-general; Viktor Zolotov, head of the National Guard; and Alexander Kalashnikov, head of the Federal Prison Service.
Among those blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury Department were Alexander Bortnikov, director of the FSB; Andrei Yarin, chief of the Kremlin's domestic policy directorate; and deputy ministers of defence Alexei Krivoruchko and Pavel Popov.
The Treasury also said it blacklisted Sergei Kiriyenko, a former prime minister who is now Putin's first deputy chief of staff; Alexander Kalashnikov, director of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service; and Krasnov.
For its part, the Biden administration had foreshadowed potential actions against Russia for weeks.
WATCH | Bill Browder discusses lack of Canadian sanctions on Russia:
Besides the Navalny sanctions, officials have said the administration plans to respond soon to the massive Russian hack of federal government agencies and private corporations that laid bare vulnerabilities in the cyber supply chain and exposed potentially sensitive secrets to elite Kremlin spies.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova on Tuesday denounced the new U.S. sanctions as part of its "meddling in our internal affairs." In a statement, she said it was not something that Russia would tolerate and noted that "we will respond in kind."
"Attempts to put pressure on Russia with sanctions or other tools have failed in the past and will fail again."
Bill Browder, the head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, said Canada should also issue sanctions.
"I'm perplexed and I should say disappointed that Canada is not pulling its weight among the international community right now," Browder told Power & Politics host Vassy Kapelos.
Call for investigation
Navalny, 44, was sickened by a nerve agent in an attack that the United States and others linked to Putin's security services. After months of recuperation in Germany, Navalny flew home to Moscow in January and was arrested upon arrival for an alleged parole violation.
His detention sparked street protests across Russia. Police arrested thousands of demonstrators.
Authorities have transferred the opposition leader to a penal colony outside of Moscow to begin serving a sentence of over two years in prison for an embezzlement conviction, in what rights groups said was a show trial.
Two top United Nations human rights experts on Monday urged an international probe into Navalny's poisoning and called for his immediate release from prison.
Agnes Callamard, the Special UN Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and Irene Khan, the Special UN Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, said the poison attack was intended to "send a clear, sinister warning that this would be the fate of anyone who would criticize and oppose the government."
The experts emphasized in the letter that Navalny "was under intensive government surveillance at the time of the attempted killing, making it unlikely that any third party could have administered such a banned chemical without the knowledge of the Russian authorities."
Russian officials have dismissed demands from the United States and the European Union to free Navalny and stop the crackdown on his supporters.
Mikhail Galperin, Russia's deputy justice minister, said Monday that Moscow has contested the European Court of Human Rights's ruling demanding Navalny's release, in the form of a letter sent to the Strasbourg-based court.
LISTEN | Who is Alexei Navalny?
