France, Germany, UK Plan to Sanction Russia for Poisoning Top Dissident
Navalny, center, was poisoned in August and is recovering in Germany. (Wikimedia Commons)
The Foreign Ministers of France and Germany issued a joint statement accusing the Kremlin of attempting murder on political dissident Alexei Navalny, concluding that there is “no other plausible explanation for Mr. Navalny’s poisoning than a Russian involvement and responsibility… France and Germany will share with European partners proposals for additional sanctions.”
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab publicly expressed his support for the statement, stating, “We will work together with our international partners to take forward sanctions targeting Russian officials and others who are considered responsible for this crime.”
Despite vehement denials from the Russian government, Western Europe remains unconvinced of Moscow’s innocence.
Navalny, hospitalized on August 20, is believed to have been poisoned with Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent that targets muscles responsible for cardiac and respiratory functions. Although it’s not known when or how Novichok entered Navalny’s body, his personal Instagram account posted a video claiming that several water bottles in his hotel room had been laced with the agent.
Alexei Navalny has never been a friend of the post-USSR Russian government. He first entered the political spotlight in 2008, when he started a blog detailing accounts of supposed corruption. Since then, he has been jailed more than 10 times.
In response to a 2013 conviction for embezzlement charges classified by Amnesty International as a silencing attempt by the Kremlin, Navalny stood before the court and vowed to “do everything in order to destroy this feudal system in Russia.” The Russian Supreme Court overturned his verdict in 2016; immediately afterwards, Navalny announced his candidacy for President. However, the case was reopened again, legally barring him from running for office.
His most recent brush with the law saw police raid the homes of many of his close allies during a period in which Putin’s approval ratings had dropped to an all-time low.
This is not the first time Russia has faced sanctions due to suspicions of attempting murder on dissidents. In the wake of the March 2018 Salisbury poisonings, in which double agent and Russian expatriate Sergei Skripal and his daughter were targeted with a Novichok agent, the EU froze the assets of four officials believed to be responsible. The U.S. further threatened to ban Russian airline Aeroflot from American airspace and cease trade.
In August 2019, former Chechen separatist leader Zelimkhan Khangoshvili was shot dead in broad daylight in Berlin. German authorities arrested a Russian man they later accused of working for the Kremlin. They also expelled two Russian diplomats from the country. The Kremlin has officially denied having any involvement in either incident.
Regarding the Navalny poisoning, neither France nor Germany have released details concerning the targets of the sanctions. Some have speculated that they will be merely symbolic in nature, lacking any substantive measures that could harm Russia’s long-term interests, nor its crucial energy exports. If the Kremlin is, in fact, responsible for all of the aforementioned attacks, the implementation of previous sanctions did not dissuade them from targeting Alexei Navalny, offering Europe little hope that further sanctions will alter Russian policy toward dissidents.