Intention to impose sanctions against Russia demonstrates lack of strategic thinking in EU

Feb. 22, 2021 - PRLog -- The European Union is working on a proposal to sanction Russia over the imprisonment of opposition figure Alexey Navalny, said Bloomberg on February 11, citing two unnamed diplomats.

According to them, EU ambassadors discussed the punitive measures at a meeting, which took place the day before. No EU member states objected to the proposal, said one of the diplomats.

Earlier, the possibility of new sanctions over the situation with Alexei Navalny was announced by the EU foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell after his first in three years visit to Moscow, which took place from 4 to 6 February.

During it, he demanded on behalf of the European Union the release of the oppositionist and all detained protesters in support of him, as well as a reversal of the decision to expel German, Polish and Swedish diplomats.

The head of European diplomacy reminded that he can use his right to initiate new restrictions on Moscow. According to him, decisions on further actions will be discussed at a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council, which is scheduled for February 22, and then at a summit in March.

Commenting on the statement of Josep Borrell that the results of his trip indicate that Russia is not interested in improving relations with the EU, which he wrote in his blog on February 7, the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov stressed that Moscow was not the initiator of curtailing these relations.

"Russia was and is interested in reviving relations between Moscow and Brussels. We are really interested in this and we weren't the initiators of curtailing these relations," the Kremlin representative said, adding that they should be based on the necessity of considering each other's interests.

"We consider this an absolute necessity for building relationships. We are adamantly opposed to meddling in each other's interests and applying double standards," Dmitry Peskov said.

Alexey Navalny, who was twice conditionally convicted for embezzlement, was placed on the wanted list for multiple violating the terms of his probation in the Yves Rocher case. According to the Federal Penitentiary Service, over the past three years, he missed criminal inspection registration almost 60 times, although he had to appear on time at least twice a month. At the same time, he was given official warnings about the possibility of replacing the suspended sentence with a real real prison term.

Source: https://penzanews.ru/en/analysis/67012-2021