The Council of the European Union on Friday imposed sanctions on six scientists involved in Russia’s chemical weapons program, claiming a link between the researchers’ work and the death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny in 2024.
The list contains the names of individuals involved in the development of epibatidine, a deadly toxin that was identified in Navalny’s body.
“Epibatidine is a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America. It does not occur naturally in Russia,” the joint statement from the European countries said.
Navalny is a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He faced numerous arrests, convictions, attacks, and at least one assassination attempt before dying in an Arctic penal colony.
Russian officials claim that Navalny died of natural causes.
However, in February this year, the governments of five European countries, including Germany, concluded that Navalny was poisoned with a lethal toxin.
Approved scientists ‘within the military field’
Navalny had been poisoned once before in 2020, an attack that put him in a coma and nearly killed him. After he was flown to Germany for treatment, a military laboratory confirmed that he had been poisoned by the Novichok nerve agent, with European officials blaming Russian officials.
On Friday, the European Union said its sanctions against Russian scientists were rooted in Moscow’s violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), an international treaty banning the use of such weapons.
The Council of the European Union said the sanctioned individuals were “scientists and researchers in the military field”.
The six scientists will be banned from traveling to the EU and their assets will be frozen. EU companies and citizens are restricted from economic relations with them.
The latest round of sanctions is the latest in a long series of punitive measures by Brussels against various Russian officials as they brutally silenced Kremlin critics and suppressed dissenting voices in the media, with Russian actions becoming more extreme since launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Edited by: Darko Janjevic
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