The Council of the European Union on Friday announced sanctions targeting six scientists and researchers suspected of being involved in the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
“The EU remains fully committed to countering the proliferation and use of chemical weapons,” read the Council statement. The sanctions include an asset freeze and a travel ban to the EU.
Navalny, long seen as the most significant political opponent to President Vladimir Putin, died in a Russian prison in 2024. According to five European governments, poisoning was “highly likely the cause of his death,” as analyses of samples from Navalny’s body “conclusively confirmed” the presence of epibatidine — a toxin from a poison dart frog.
The scientists targeted by the EU’s sanctions worked in the military sphere, and have researched and published articles on the synthesis of epibatidine. They worked for the Signal Scientific Centre and Russia’s State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology, a central part of the Russian Chemical Weapons program, according to the statement.
Navalny had survived an attempted poisoning in 2020, which he said was carried out by Russia’s internal security service, the FSB, though Russia denied involvement. After leaving his country to receive medical care, he returned in 2021. He was then arrested and sent to a Russian penal colony, where he died in 2024.