The EU sanctions list for the incident with blogger Alexei Navalny may include nine people. This was reported by the newspaper Le Monde on Thursday, October 8.
“The list includes nine people from the Presidential Administration [России] and law enforcement agencies, ”the newspaper notes, citing its own sources.
The publication does not rule out that Moscow “may take retaliatory measures.”
It is noted that this list, which is supposed to freeze bank accounts and banned from traveling to Europe, will be discussed at a meeting in Brussels on October 12.
The newspaper did not specify the names of those who may fall under the restrictions, but such names of the sources of its information.
Earlier on Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in an interview with Dozhd TV channel that if the EU imposes sanctions against Moscow over the situation with Navalny, the Russian side will respond in kind.
She recalled that a pre-investigation check on the “Navalny case” is now being carried out in Russia, and Moscow has not received any answers from the FRG.
On the eve it became known that the authorities of France and Germany will offer a package of sanctions against Russia due to the situation with the alleged “use of chemical weapons” against Navalny.
On October 6, the OPCW reported that the cholinesterase inhibitor, the biomarkers of which were found in the blogger’s analyzes, is not included in the list of prohibited drugs. It was also noted that the found substance has structural characteristics similar to those of toxic chemicals on the list of prohibited substances.
Navalny felt unwell during the Tomsk-Moscow flight on August 20. The plane urgently landed in Omsk, the patient was taken to the emergency hospital No. 1, and later to the Charite clinic in Berlin.
In Germany, it was reported that a Russian was found to have signs of intoxication with a substance from the group of cholinesterase inhibitors. Omsk doctors during his examination did not reveal intoxication with this substance. On September 23, the blogger was discharged from the hospital.
The German government, relying on data from a special laboratory of the Bundeswehr, said that Navalny was allegedly poisoned with a substance from the Novichok group. No evidence or facts were attached to this statement. Official requests from the Russian side, including the Prosecutor General’s Office and doctors, remained unanswered.