The United States intends to impose sanctions on Russia on March 2 over the situation with blogger Alexei Navalny, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing two sources.
According to the agency, the US authorities will impose restrictions under the 2005 law to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the 1991 law on the control over chemical and biological weapons and the prohibition of their military use, as well as the decree that was issued “after the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 and provides broad powers to prosecute Russian officials. “
Earlier on Monday, CNN reported that the administration of US President Joe Biden intends to impose anti-Russian sanctions this week in connection with the situation around Navalny.
On the same day, US State Department spokesman Ned Price, in response to a question from journalists about possible measures by the US administration in the “Navalny case”, said that the country’s government intends to closely coordinate its actions with the European Union.
On March 1, TASS, citing a source, reported that the ambassadors of the 27 EU member states had agreed on sanctions against Russia in connection with the conviction against Navalny. According to the interlocutor of the agency, in the near future the decision will be approved by the EU Council and published in the Official Journal of the Community, after which it will come into force.
In response, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko promised that Moscow would respond to new EU sanctions in the case of blogger Alexei Navalny.
The decision on restrictions was made by the European Union in connection with the conviction against Navalny, which on February 2, the Simonovsky court of the capital, decided to cancel the suspended sentence in the Yves Rocher case and replace it with 3.5 years in a general regime colony. The reason for replacing the suspended sentence with a real one was numerous violations of the probationary period. At the same time, the judge ruled to credit the blogger with a year spent under house arrest. Thus, he will spend about two years and eight months in the colony.