UK sanctions Kremlin chiefs over poisoning of Navalny

THE UK is to enforce European Union sanctions against members of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle over the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader, the Foreign Office said yesterday.

The announcement came hours after the EU imposed asset freezes and travel bans on six senior Russian officials, including Alexander Bortnikov, the director of the FSB intelligence service, and two deputy defence ministers.

It also imposed sanctions on a chemi cal research i nstitute in Moscow involved in the development of the nerve agent Novichok, which is believed to have been used in the attempted assassination of Mr Navalny.

“Together with our international partners, we are sanctioning those responsible for the criminal poisoning of Alexei Navalny,” Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, said.

“Any use of chemical weapons by the Russian state violates international law. We are determined to hold those responsible to account.”

A Foreign Office statement said: “The UK and its partners have agreed that there is no plausible explanation for Mr Navalny’s poisoning, other than Russian involvement and responsibility.”

The EU said independent tests in Germany, France and Sweden had found Mr Navalny was poisoned with Novichok.

The sanctions included two members of Mr Putin’s presidential staff and his senior representative in Siberia.

The move was announced as Mr Navalny made public the names of four wealthy Russian exiles he said had paid the cost of his medical evacuation to Germany and treatment in Berlin. They include Evgeny Chichvarkin, a billionaire entrepreneur who lives in London and is a prominent critic of Mr Putin.

Mr Navalny fell sick on a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow in August. The plane was diverted to Omsk. Following international pressure Russia agreed to his transfer to Berlin.

In a post on his Instagram account, Mr Navalny said the medical evacuation flight to Berlin cost €79,000 (£72,000) and was paid for by Boris Zimin, a US-based businessman and outspoken critic of Mr Putin. He said his treatment at Berlin’s Charite teaching hospital cost €49,900 (£45,000) and the costs were shared by Mr Chichvarkin; Sergei Aleksashenko, a Russian economist based in the US; and Roman Ivanov, who he described as an “IT specialist”.

Mr Zimin’s involvement was previously known, but it is the first time the other three have been named. Mr Navalny said he had made the details public in the interests of transparency.