Alexei Navalny calls for sanctions against ‘enablers’ of Putin regime including Roman Abramovich

Alexei Navalny was taken to the notorious Moscow jail on Monday evening

Credit: Pavel Golovkin/AP

Top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who has been jailed for at least a month after returning to Russia over the weekend, has urged Western governments to impose sanctions on key tycoons and allies of President Vladimir Putin including Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich and tycoon Alisher Usmanov.

Mr Navalny, who nearly died from a nerve agent poisoning last summer, was detained at a Moscow airport on Sunday and ordered to be kept behind bars at least until mid-February.

His close associate Vladimir Ashurkov said in a statement on Facebook on Monday that the Russian opposition leader drew up the list a few days before he came back to Russia from Germany where he was convalescing from the poisoning.

“We agreed on a list of people he felt should be sanctioned if the West wanted to get serious about encouraging Russia to cease attacking human rights and to rein in corruption,” Mr Ashurkov said.

Mr Ashurkov, who fled to the UK in 2014 following criminal prosecution in Russia, quoted Mr Navalny as saying that “sanctions aren’t working because the West has refrained from sanctioning the people with the money.”

“It is not enough to sanction the operatives who just follow orders in arresting and assassinating dissidents,” he said.

“The West must sanction the decision-makers and the people who hold their money. Nothing less will make an impact on the behavior of the Russian authorities.”

Mr Navalny has suggested targeting some of Russia’s richest men who have enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle in the West while remaining loyal to Mr Putin.

The list of eight people put forward by Mr Navalny includes Mr Abramovich, described as “one of the key enablers and beneficiaries of Russian kleptocracy,” banker Andrey Kostin and billionaire and former FC Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov.

Mr Ashurkov urged Western government to sanction people on the list unless “Alexei is immediately released.”

The West, responding to the 2014 annexation of Crimea, Russia’s involvement in the war in eastern Ukraine and other events, have sanctioned various Russian government officials and a few businessmen believed to be close to President Putin but never anyone with the international stature of Mr Abramovich or Mr Usmanov.

President Putin’s most formidable opponent was sent to jail for a month on Monday for violating the terms of his suspended sentence.

A separate hearing next month will rule whether to convert that suspended sentence to jail time. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that the president “has nothing to do” with Mr Navalny’s legal troubles and dismissed suggestions that the president may be scared of Mr Navalny as “nonsense.”

Mr Peskov also said that the Kremlin does not fear massive opposition protests that are planned for the upcoming weekend.

An independent prison monitor visited Mr Navalny late on Monday at the notorious Moscow jail where tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died a decade ago after being denied medical help.

Mr Navalny, who is reportedly in good spirits, will stay in a cell by himself for the next 14 days to comply with coronavirus quarantine, Alexei Melnikov said on his Telegram channel.

The opposition politician has a fridge, an electric kettle, a TV in his cell as well as hot water, which is not always the case at the Matrosskaya Tishina jail in Moscow which dates back to the mid-19th century.