Group Of EU Ministers To Meet Navalny Aides Sunday

Group of EU ministers to meet Navalny aides Sunday

Vilnius, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Feb, 2021 ) :A group of EU foreign ministers will meet with two top aides of jailed anti-Kremlin campaigner Alexei Navalny in Brussels on Sunday, Lithuania's foreign ministry said.

The meeting including more than 12 foreign ministers will come ahead of talks on Monday between all the EU ministers to discuss possible sanctions against Russia.

"We need information about the real situation with regime opponents in Russia," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told AFP on Friday.

"It is best to hear it directly, therefore Lithuania took the initiative to organise the meeting with Russian opposition figures in Brussels," he said.

The meeting will be with Leonid Volkov, the head of Navalny's regional network who is currently living in Lithuania, and Ivan Zhdanov, another key Navalny aide.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said he will propose new sanctions after a chastening visit to Russia earlier this month during which Moscow announced the shock expulsion of three European diplomats.

But EU states are divided over what to do.

The Baltic states and Poland have taken a lead in calling for fresh sanctions against Russia.

Navalny's supporters want the EU to sanction the moneymen they accuse of protecting Russian President Vladimir Putin's wealth and financing his regime.

"A political agreement on EU response to events surrounding Navalny is expected in Foreign Affairs Council on Monday," an EU diplomatic source told AFP.

"The drafting of the list of influential figures close to the Kremlin that may be targeted by sanctions is in its final stages," the source said.

The EU's ties with Russia have been tense since Moscow seized the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and fuelled the war in eastern Ukraine.

Relations worsened further after Navalny, Putin's most prominent domestic opponent, was sentenced to almost three years in prison following his return to Russia last month from Germany, where he had been recovering from a poisoning attack.

His jailing sparked widespread protests across Russia that saw at least 10,000 people detained.