EU proposes new Russia sanctions over death of Navalny

The European Union will propose new sanctions related to the death of the Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny in an arctic prison last month.

The restrictive measures will include 35 persons and two entities, according to a draft of the proposal seen by Bloomberg. 

The EU approved a modest package of sanctions last month aimed at Moscow, its 13th since Russia invaded Ukraine. Those measures focused on enforcing existing restrictions. 

Among the proposed listings are several prison and government officials, judges as well as the IK-3 and IK-6 penal colonies, according to the draft. 

Navalny’s death removed the most prominent opponent of President Vladimir Putin ahead of the March 15-17 presidential election in which he’s seeking a fifth term.

Navalny rose to prominence during massive pro-democracy protest in Russia in 2011-2012. The Kremlin critic was barred from running in a 2018 presidential ballot because of a fraud conviction that the US and EU criticized as politically motivated. 

He fell ill in August 2020 on a flight to Moscow after meeting with local activists in the Siberian city of Tomsk. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, an international watchdog, confirmed that a nerve agent from the banned Novichok group had been used in the poisoning.

The opposition leader was transferred to a remote Arctic prison colony, IK-3, in late December from a jail outside Moscow. In his last post on X, formerly Twitter, on Feb. 14, he reported that he’d been sentenced to 15 days in a punishment cell for the fourth time since he’d arrived there.

He’d been advocating from prison on social media for a nationwide protest during the presidential election, encouraging people to arrive at polling stations at exactly midday to vote against Putin. Navalny’s widow, Yulia, urge Russians to carry out the midday voting protest in a video on social media this week.