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When former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with the Soviet chemical weapon novitjok in the English city of Salisbury in 2018, the EU’s mills slowly melted down. Then it was almost a year before the EU decided on sanctions against the leaders of the Russian military intelligence service.
This time, the EU has acted much faster, in less than two months.
Navalny fell ill in connection with an electoral tour of Siberia on August 20 and was evacuated to a hospital in Berlin after two days. Within a few weeks, a German military laboratory discovered that he had been exposed to a variant of the neurotoxin novitjok.
After Navalny He had awakened from a coma, he said in the first interview (to Der Spiegel magazine on October 1): “I claim that Putin was behind the crime, and I have no other explanation for what happened.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who visited the Russian politician on his sickbed at the Charité hospital in Berlin, commented: “Navalny is the victim of a crime designed to silence him.”
There was no question who Merkel named here. Nor did he reinforce Navalny’s position as Russia’s main opposition politician with his gesture.
The head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov.
Photo: TASS
EU sanctions are targeted not just against high-ranking espionage chiefs like the head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, and two deputy defense ministers. In addition, two close associates of Putin have been included, both linked to the presidency. These were people who, according to the EU, there is reason to believe may have been involved in planning the attack on Navalny. And the British government, which no longer belongs to the EU family, held out and declared that the same sanctions should be applied.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, condemned the sanctions decision as “a deliberately hostile move against Russia.” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow will respond with proportionate measures.
East-West political relations have thus reached a new low level. Not least, Merkel’s clear indications are that the atmosphere between Germany and Russia, which previously held a special position, has turned colder.
However, the question is: Does this type of sanction, which is directed against individual senior officials, have any real effect?
The one who doubts is Navalny. In the interview in Der Spiegel, he claimed that sanctions are not very tangible as long as Russia’s elite strata are allowed to use everything Europe has to offer. Navalny says that despite all the sanctions, they have a fairly comfortable life in the West:
– What Putin cares about is power and personal enrichment, and these two things are inseparable. How many billions can you give to your daughters and friends? It would hurt them if Europe established borders and confiscated their assets.
Photo: BROCHURE
When they asked about him believes that the EU should stop the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany, Navalny responds evasively, but states that it opposes sanctions against Russia as a whole:
– What we need are sanctions against specific perpetrators, and I can say that they would be welcomed by 95 percent of the Russian population. Then those who benefit from the corrupt system will no longer be able to enjoy life in Berlin.
British Eastern European expert and political science professor Mark Galeotti is also skeptical that the sanctions will affect Russia’s policy.
In The Moscow Times, he writes that “they all belong to a regime that poisons, shoots or punishes its enemies with impunity.” And he adds that the sanctions will not harm the Kremlin or affect its future actions.
Read more:
British spy chief warns Russia and China
Sweden is behind the EU sanctions against Russia
