Brussels, Oct 16 (IANS) : The European Union has imposed sanctions against six Russian individuals and an entity allegedly involved in the “assassination attempt” on opposition figure Alexei Navalny.
The six Russians, including Andrei Yarin, chief of the Presidential Domestic Policy Directorate in the Presidential Executive Office, are subject to travel ban and asset freeze, Xinhua news agency quoted the European Council as saying in a statement on Thursday.
The sanctioned entity, State Scientific Research Institute for Organic Chemistry and Technology, is subject to asset freeze, the statement said.
The decision followed the political agreement reached by the Foreign Ministers of the 27 EU member states on Monday.
Navalny, the 44-year-old staunch critic of Putin, fell ill on a flight from the Russian city of Tomsk to Moscow on August 20 and the plane had to make an emergency landing in the city of Omsk.
He reportedly went into coma after being hospitalized in Omsk and was later transferred to Germany for treatment.
On October 8, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergei Naryshkin said that no poisonous substances were found in Navalny’s body.
Naryshkin dismissed the allegation made by Navalny that he was poisoned by Russian special services, calling it “Russophobic propaganda”
.
