Washington:
The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on seven senior Russians as it mentioned its intelligence concluded that Moscow was behind the poisoning of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
In action coordinated with the EU, the United States renewed demands that Russia totally free Navalny, who was arrested in January upon his return to Moscow as he spurred huge rallies by way of his allegations of corruption by President Vladimir Putin.
“The intelligence community assesses with high confidence that officers of Russia’s Federal Security Service FSB used a nerve agent known as Novichok to poison Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on August 20, 2020,” a senior US official mentioned.
Officials mentioned that the United States would impose sanctions on “seven senior members of the Russian government” with the specifics anticipated to be released later Tuesday.
They also mentioned that the United States would restrict exports to Russia as it vowed that President Joe Biden would take a tougher line than his predecessor Donald Trump, who voiced admiration for Putin.
“We’re sending a clear signal to Russia that there are clear consequences to the use of chemical weapons,” yet another official mentioned.
Navalny, 44, fell violently ill when he was on a domestic flight.
He was rushed to remedy in Germany exactly where medical doctors mentioned he had been poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent created by Soviet researchers and which was also blamed in a 2018 attack in England against Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter and Yulia.
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