Russia has imposed sanctions against eight EU officials in retaliation for punitive measures imposed by Brussels on Russian officials involved in the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia announced today that it has banned the entry into the country of the President of the European Parliament David Sasoli, the Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency Vera Yurova and other officials of the member states of the Union.
The ministry headed by Sergei Lavrov accused the EU of trying to punish Moscow for its "independent foreign and domestic policies" and of trying to curb Russia's development with "illegal restrictions."
"All our proposals for solving problems between Russia and the EU through direct dialogue are consistently ignored or rejected," the Russian Ministry said.
The sanctions are a response to similar measures imposed by the EU against six Russian officials in March who were responsible for jailing Navalny, the most prominent opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Navalny was arrested on January 17, immediately after returning to Russia from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from poisoning with a Soviet nerve agent, which he blames on the Kremlin. The Russian authorities reject these claims and question his poisoning itself, which was confirmed by several European laboratories.
In February, the Moscow court sentenced Navalny to two and a half years in prison, changing his suspended sentence from 2014 to prison, because he did not report to the competent authority in time, while he was recovering from poisoning in Germany. Navalny assesses the conviction for fraud from 2014 as politically motivated.
Navalny's imprisonment has further strained Russia's relations with the West, which have fallen to their lowest level since the end of the Cold War following Russia's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014. Relations were further complicated after accusations by Brussels and Washington that Moscow interfered in elections in other countries and was responsible for hacking attacks.
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