EU PLANS NEW SANCTIONS OVER DEATH OF JAILED KREMLIN CRITIC

▶ Navalny’s widow visits Brussels to meet foreign ministers as hundreds of mourners are arrested in Russia

EU member states are planning to impose new sanctions on Russia in response to Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s death in prison, after his widow held talks with European foreign ministers yesterday.

Mr Navalny died on Friday, a week before the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russian authorities said he collapsed after a walk at the Polar Wolf penal colony in the Arctic Circle, where he was serving a 19-year sentence after being poisoned with a nerve agent in 2020.

Yesterday, Russian investigators said they had not established the official cause of Mr Navalny’s death, as his widow, Yuliya Navalnaya, vowed to continue her husband’s work.

“[Russian President] Vladimir Putin killed my husband. By killing Alexei, Putin killed half of me – half of my heart and half of my soul,” she said in a video posted on social media.

“But I still have the other half and it tells me that I have no right to give up. I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny, continue to fight for our country.”

Ms Navalnaya travelled to Brussels yesterday and met EU foreign ministers to discuss the bloc’s response.

After the meeting, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell vowed that Europe would hold Mr Putin accountable.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Berlin would be among those calling for more sanctions on Moscow.

“We have seen the brutal force with which the Russian President represses his own citizens who take to the streets to demonstrate for freedom or write about it in newspapers,” Ms Baerbock said.

“We will propose new sanctions in light of the death of Alexei Navalny.”

Ms Baerbock suggested the sanctions could be tentatively approved tomorrow if Budapest gives its backing.

This would be the EU’s 13th sanctions package against Russia since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Hungary is the only EU state yet to approve the most recent sanctions, which were proposed before Mr Navalny’s death.

The measures would freeze the assets of almost 200 companies and individuals – including some outside Russia – deemed to be involved in the war, or in bypassing already existing sanctions.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron previously indicated the UK may introduce further sanctions against Russian officials. London did not comment on possible sanctions yesterday, but paid tribute to Mr Navalny and called for a full investigation.

“It is very clear that the Russian authorities saw him as a threat, and that is why they imprisoned him on fabricated charges,” a spokesman for UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said.

“The FSB [Russian federal security service] poisoned him with a banned nerve agent and then sent him to an Arctic penal colony … his death must be fully investigated and all of those in the Russian regime must be held to account.”

Mr Navalny, a former lawyer, rose to prominence campaigning against corruption in Mr Putin’s Russia. He was known for his fiery rhetoric at public protests and in courtrooms, his vocal presence on social media and his team’s elaborate video investigations into state graft.

He was jailed in January 2021, when he returned to Moscow to face certain arrest after recuperating in Germany from the nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin.

He was convicted three times on charges of extremism, which he said were politically motivated, and was sentenced to 19 years.

After the third verdict, Mr Navalny said he understood he was “serving a life sentence, which is measured by the length of my life or the lifespan of this regime”.

In a documentary filmed before he returned to Russia, Mr Navalny was asked what message he wanted to leave to the Russian people should he die or be killed.

“Don’t give up. You mustn’t, you can’t give up,” he said.

“All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. Therefore, don’t do nothing.”

Police detained more than 350 people at the weekend as they tried to lay flowers at makeshift memorials to Mr Navalny in cities across Russia.

Russian authorities say Navalny collapsed at an Arctic penal colony, but an official cause of death has not yet been given