The death of Alexei Navalny caused horror around the world. The EU has now responded with sanctions – including against the Russian doctor in Navalny’s penal colony.
Five weeks after the death of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, the EU implemented sanctions against 33 people from the judiciary and politics in Russia. The two penal colonies in which Navalny was most recently imprisoned were also symbolically placed on the EU sanctions list, as the EU Official Journal shows.
The penal colonies IK-3 and IK-6 are known for subjecting prisoners to physical and psychological pressure, complete isolation, torture and violence and for poor medical care, the statement says.
Kremlin critic Navalny, who was sentenced to a long prison sentence, died in a prison camp in Siberia in mid-February. The circumstances of his death are still unclear to this day. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s harshest critic collapsed at the age of 47 while touring the icy prison yard, authorities said. Attempts at resuscitation were unsuccessful, it said.
Germany and the other 26 EU states accuse Putin and the Russian authorities of being to blame for the politician’s death. Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya believes that her husband was murdered in the camp.
Who will the sanctions affect?
The new EU punitive measures were imposed using a sanctions instrument to punish serious human rights violations. Affected people are no longer allowed to enter the EU and no longer do business with EU citizens.
In addition, their EU accounts and other assets must be frozen. The people affected include the top staff of the penal colonies and high-ranking officials. Among them, for example, is the doctor and head of the medical department of the IK-3 penal colony.
The official gazette states that he was responsible for Navalny’s health, but did not pay attention to his catastrophic prison conditions and his poor health. He also failed to ensure that his department had adequate resuscitation capacity and that Navalny was taken to the nearest hospital in time after his collapse on February 16, 2024.
There was already a new package of sanctions in February
The EU states recently decided on new sanctions against Russia on the second anniversary of the war against Ukraine. The measures targeted 106 individuals and 88 entities responsible for actions that undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.
These included people involved in North Korea’s arms sales to Russia, as well as the North Korean defense minister. There have been far-reaching economic sanctions for a long time, such as import bans on crude oil, coal, steel, gold and luxury goods as well as punitive measures against banks and financial institutions.
