Britain sanctions Russians it says developed chemical weapons used to kill opposition figure Navalny

LONDON – Britain on July 6 sanctioned seven individuals and two research institutes linked to Russia’s chemical weapons programme, targeting those it said were involved in developing toxins used to poison Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny.

Navalny fell seriously ill on a flight in Siberia in 2020 and Western laboratories concluded he had been poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent.

The Kremlin has denied accusations that the Russian state had killed Navalny using toxins from poison dart frogs.

The British government said on July 6 that some of those sanctioned were involved in developing Novichok agents and Epibatidine, the highly toxic chemical that London says was used against Navalny.

Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper said Russia’s “repeated use of chemical weapons” was a violation of international law and a threat to global security.

“From the use of Novichok nerve agents in Salisbury to Epibatidine in Siberia, poisoning Dawn Sturgess and Alexei Navalny, Russia continues to use barbaric tools to inflict death and suffering on innocent civilians, including in Ukraine,” she added.

The Russian embassy in London did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the new sanctions.

Novichok is a class of military-grade nerve agents developed during the Soviet era. It was used in the 2018 poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, an attack that also led to the death of a civilian, Dawn Sturgess, who came into contact with a discarded container of the substance. REUTERS