Eight EU member states, namely the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Sweden, have asked for new sanctions against Russia following the death of opposition leader Oleksiy Navalny.

“Navalny’s death is another signal of accelerated and systematic repression in Russia (…) We must step up our efforts to hold Russia’s political leadership and authorities accountable and make them pay more for their actions, including through sanctions,” – noted in the mass media. ministers of eight countries in a letter sent on Wednesday to the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell and consulted by the EFE agency, Agerpres quotes.

The eight ministers expressed their support for a proposal that Borrell himself formulated last week for sanctions against new individuals and entities falling under the EU’s human rights sanctions regime, and that the series of sanctions should bear Navalny’s name.

In addition, the ministers of the eight states proposed to create a special regime of sanctions, “designed for the situation in the country (not in Russia)”, which would complement the one that the EU already has for the application of restrictive measures. measures against Russia as a result of the war in Ukraine.

“The new regime will provide a strong legal basis for the inclusion of people from Russia’s repressive apparatus, including those involved in politically motivated sentences against members of civil society and the democratic opposition (…), as well as those responsible in the judicial system (prosecutors, courts and the penitentiary sector)”, the letter also supports Denmark, France, Ireland and the Netherlands without signing it.

The criteria for including new people in such a new sanctions regime should include “the deterioration of the human rights situation, the politicization of the judicial system and repression, including actions that undermine democracy and the rule of law,” the same ministers suggest in a letter to Borrell. .

The funeral and burial of Russian activist Oleksiy Navalny will take place on Friday in Moscow. He died suddenly on February 16 at the age of 47 in a prison in the Arctic region, where he was serving a 19-year sentence. The causes of his death have not yet been clarified, according to relatives, natural causes are indicated in the death certificate.

A day before his death, he participated in two court sessions via video link and did not complain about his health. However, at the various hearings in his courts that he has attended in recent months, Navalny has appeared frail and aged. He had numerous health problems due to starvation and poisoning, which he miraculously survived in 2020.

The Russian activist has denounced his multiple trials as political, seeing them as a way to punish him for his opposition to President Vladimir Putin.

Navalny, who the Kremlin says worked for the US CIA, accused Putin of ordering the FSB to poison him in August 2020 with the Novachok chemical. Transferred after being poisoned to a hospital in Germany, the Russian dissident returned to Moscow in January 2021, although he was aware that he was at risk of arrest.

Although he has since been in custody, he has regularly posted social media posts, often sarcastic about Putin and the prison administration, in which he has routinely criticized Russian authorities.

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