Russia announces travel bans against EU officials in response to Navalny sanctions

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The country’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that officials would be barred from entering Russia.

He did not mention which representatives will be banned, but said he forwarded his decision to the ambassadors of Germany, France and Sweden after convening them earlier on Tuesday.

A number of EU countries have been planning measures against Russia since October, when an international chemical weapons watchdog confirmed that Navalny, who became seriously ill in August, had been poisoned by a Novichok nerve agent.
Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny cheats on spy to reveal how he was poisoned

France and Germany have led European pressure for sanctions following the verdict and have been backed by UK and EU leaders.

“We consider that the adoption by the European Union at the request of its governing states of illegitimate restrictive measures against some of our fellow citizens under the pretext of their alleged involvement in the incident with Russian citizen Alexey Navalny is absolutely unacceptable,” the Foreign Minister said in a statement on Tuesday. statement.

Officials will not be allowed to enter Russia, the ministry added. “We reaffirm that any unfriendly action by Western countries will inevitably be met with an appropriate response.”

Laboratories in Germany, France and Sweden have previously said they were able to track the presence of nerve agent Novichok in Navalny’s tests following his poisoning in Tomsk, Russia.

A CNN-Bellingcat investigation last week identified Russian specialists who followed Navalny for years before he was poisoned.
And in a further development discovered on Monday, a Russian agent sent in the tail the opposition leader revealed to Navalny himself how he was poisoned in August – with the lethal nerve agent Novichok planted in panties. The revelation of an agent who belonged to an elite team for toxins from the security service of the FSB in Russia came through a long phone call.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday he did not watch the video of the conversation, but criticized Navalny as a megalomaniac with a “Jesus” complex.

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