US to impose sanctions on Russia over Navalny poisoning

The sanctions would be Joe Biden’s first on Russia, a marked departure from Donald Trump’s approach to Moscow.

The EU has approved sanctions on four senior Russian officials for the treatment of Alexei Navalny. Picture: AFP

US President Joe Biden’s administration is preparing to impose sanctions on Russia for the poisoning and imprisonment of Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny.

Citing two administration ­officials, CNN reported on Tuesday that the US would co-ordinate with the EU to determine what the sanctions would entail and their exact timing.

According to one official, an option is an executive order that would trigger sanctions on Russia for repeated ­attacks on US democracy, ­including the SolarWinds cybersecurity hack and placing bounties on US soldiers in Afghanistan.

The sanctions would be Mr Biden’s first on Russia, and would be a marked departure from his predecessor Donald Trump’s ­approach to dealing with Moscow. Mr Trump was accused of taking a soft line towards Vlad­imir Putin, particularly during their 2018 summit in Helsinki when he backed the Russian President’s claim Moscow didn’t interfere in the 2016 US election — despite American intelligence agencies pointing to the contrary.

The EU approved sanctions on four senior Russian officials late on Monday, as UN human rights experts called for an international probe into Mr Navalny’s poisoning with the banned nerve agent novichok and his immediate release.

The EU sanctions are on four legal and security officials involved in Mr Navalny’s detention. They are the first individuals to be targeted under the EU’s new human rights sanctions regime, which came into effect in December. They will be banned from travelling to the EU and any assets held there will be frozen.

Agnes Callamard, the UN’s special rapporteur on extra­judicial, summary and arbitrary executions, and Irene Khan, the top expert on freedom of opinion and expression, insisted on the need to ensure accountability for Mr Navalny’s “sinister poisoning”. They demanded his ­“immediate release” from a Russian penal colony, where he was transferred last week from a Moscow prison.

Ms Callamard said in Geneva that she and Ms Khan had concluded that “Russia is responsible for the attempted arbitrary killing” of Mr Navalny.

Ms Khan said Mr Navalny’s poisoning with novichok may have been “carried out deliberately to send a clear, sinister warning that this would be the fate of anyone else who would criticise and oppose the government”.

“Novichok was precisely chosen to cause fear,” she said.

Mr Navalny was jailed last month after returning to Moscow from Germany, where the 44-year-old had spent months recovering from the poisoning he blames on Mr Putin. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied it was behind the attack.

The imprisoning of Mr Putin’s best-known opponent sparked nationwide protests that saw thousands of demonstrators detained and triggered calls in the West for his release.

AFP