EU sanctions Kremlin chiefs over Alexei Navalny poisoning

The EU has announced sanctions against members of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, including the head of Russia’s domestic spy agency, over the poisoning of opposition figure Alexei Navalny.

The EU said it had agreed sanctions against six people believed to have been involved in the “assassination attempt” against Putin’s most vocal critic.

The assets of Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor intelligence agency to the Soviet KGB, will be frozen, and he will face a travel ban, along with Sergei Kiriyenko, the first deputy chief of staff in Putin’s administration. Andrei Yarin, another Kremlin official, Alexei Krivoruchko and Pavel Popov, deputy ministers of defence, and Sergei Menyaylo, a presidential envoy to the Siberian Federal District, will also be targeted.

Alexei Navalny says he believes Vladimir Putin was behind poisoning

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Navalny is still recovering in Germany after falling ill on a flight to Moscow from Siberia in August. The plane was forced to make an emergency landing and he was briefly treated in a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk, before being evacuated to Germany following a standoff between his family and Russian doctors.

Laboratories in Germany, France and Sweden have all confirmed that Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent from the novichok group, the same type of chemical that was used against former intelligence agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.

The EU also sanctioned the Russian research institute it believes developed the chemical that was used to poison Navalny, the Russian State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology.

Navalny and his supporters have laid the blame for the attack squarely on Putin, saying there was “no other explanation” for the use of novichok. European leaders have called on Russia to answer questions over the poisoning.

Moscow has denied any involvement and dismissed claims it targeted Navalny as “absurd”. Russian officials have variously suggested that Western spy agencies orchestrated the poisoning, Navalny poisoned himself, or even that he was not poisoned at all. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, accused the opposition leader of working with the CIA.

Russia has already said it will respond with counter-sanctions against the EU but has yet to announce what form they will take. Moscow is already under western sanctions over the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

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Angela Merkel: ‘unequivocal proof’ Alexei Navalny was poisoned with novichok – video

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, previously said the EU was using the poisoning of Navalny as an excuse to impose long-planned measures against Russia. On Wednesday, he claimed that Europe was acting under pressure from the US.

In his first English-language interview since the attack, Navalny told the US programme 60 Minutes that Putin “enjoyed” using poison as a means to silence dissenting voices.

Putin was using chemical weapons to “both kill me and, you know, terrify others”, he said.

Navalny noted that the US had yet to introduce sanctions and called on Donald Trump to condemn Russia over the poisoning.