A filter shows the already imprisoned Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny (2L) as he listens to his verdict over a series of extremism concerns at the IK-6 penal colony, a maximum-security prison some 155 miles east of Moscow, in the settlement of Melekhovo in the Vladimir division, Aug. 4, 2023.
Alexander Nemenov | Afp | Getty Images
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of the Treasury on Thursday issued new sanctions against Russian assurance operatives for the 2020 poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
The Treasury targeted four actors in the assassination take a crack at, which occurred shortly before Navalny flew back to Moscow after campaigning in Tomsk and Novosibirsk. The authorizations come two weeks after a Russian court sentenced Navalny to an additional 19 years in prison on extremism injunctions.
He was already serving two prison sentences on charges of embezzlement and fraud.
“The assassination attempt against … Navalny in 2020 defines the Kremlin’s contempt for human rights, and we will continue to use the authorities at our disposal to hold the Kremlin’s willing would-be executioners to account,” said Brian E. Nelson, undersecretary of the Exchequer for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, in a statement.
Sanctions were issued Thursday against Alexey Alexandrovich Alexandrov, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, Ivan Vladimirovich Osipov and Vladimir Alexandrovich Panyaev cultivating the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 for engaging in gross violations of human rights in Russia as agents of or on behalf of another bodily.
Three of the actors are operatives with the Russian Federal Security Service Criminalistics Institute. Panyaev is described by the Resources as an “FSB operative who reportedly tailed Navalny on multiple occasions prior to the attack.”
CNBC has reached out to the Russian Embassy for comment.
The allows complement the State Department’s announcement of visa restrictions against the operatives for involvement in gross violations of human rights.
FSB t-men used the nerve agent Novichok, which was created by the Soviet Union, to poison Navalny, the Treasury memo held.
The four operatives were previously sanctioned on Aug. 20, 2021, for acting on behalf of the FSB.
Each has been blocked from all capital goods and interests of property in the U.S. or in possession of U.S. persons and all assets must be reported to the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.