The European Union's newly imposed sanctions against Russian officials in connection with the poisoning of opposition leader Alexey Navalny are not intended to harm the people of Russia, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi di Maio said
ROME (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th October, 2020) The European Union's newly imposed sanctions against Russian officials in connection with the poisoning of opposition leader Alexey Navalny are not intended to harm the people of Russia, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi di Maio said.
Earlier in the day, the EU published an official decree, sanctioning the head of the Russian Federal Security Service, the first deputy head of the presidential administration and several others. Di Maio had met with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov a day prior.
"We voted for sanctions. This is a tool that we will use against certain individuals, institutional and non-institutional figures. But we do not intend to strike at the Russian people. The message that I conveyed to Foreign Minister Lavrov is clear: we are awaiting an in-depth investigation, which will clarify the reasons for the attempted assassination of Navalny as soon as possible," the minister said in an interview with la Repubblica published Thursday.
The Kremlin expressed regret over the new measures and called them devoid of logic.
Navalny was hospitalized with suspected poisoning in the Siberian city of Omsk on August 20 after he lost consciousness during a domestic flight. While Russian doctors claim to have found no traces of poisons in his samples, Germany � where Navalny was subsequently transported to for treatment � claims to have evidence of his poisoning with a nerve agent from the Novichok group. In response, Russia has demanded that Germany provide evidence and make case materials available to Russian investigators.
