EU foreign ministers, including outgoing Czech minister Jan Lipavsky, yesterday approved the imposition of sanctions on 10 more people in connection with human rights violations in Russia, as proposed by the Czech Republic.
These include representatives of the Russian prison system responsible for systematic torture and inhumane treatment of Ukrainian prisoners, which often resulted in the deaths of detainees, as in the case of Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna.
“I am very happy that today the European Union adopted sanctions on the basis of the Czech proposal,” said Lipavsky after the meeting. “These are people who are creating what we can call a totalitarian or dictatorial regime in Russia.”
“The ten people are judges, investigators, people who prosecute for political reasons and carry out repression,” he added. He said the approval of the Czech proposal was a clear signal of where “the European Union stands and where Czech diplomacy stands.”
The new sanctions also apply to judges and prosecutors responsible for politically motivated trials of Alexei Gorin, a critic of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and against associates of the anti-corruption foundation of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Roshchyna died last year at the age of 27 in Russian captivity. According to witnesses, she was previously part of one of the prisoner exchanges between Russia and Ukraine. Citing Ukrainian authorities, the media reported that her body, which Russia handed over to Ukraine, showed signs of torture, and that her brain, eyes and part of her larynx were removed before being sent to Ukraine.
The persons and entities on the sanctions lists have had all their accounts in EU banks frozen, and individuals are banned from travelling anywhere in the European Union.
There are currently over 50 sanctions regimes in the European Union, involving almost 5,000 individuals and entities. They were introduced in response to the situation in countries such as Russia, Belarus, Iran and North Korea.
In addition, the EU has adopted thematic sanctions regimes, which target terrorism, human rights violations, nuclear weapon proliferation activities, the use of chemical weapons and cyber-attacks.
