Russia Should Retaliate To EU Sanctions Over Navalny With Economic Restrictions - Lawmaker

Russia needs to respond to the European Union's sanctions introduced against Russian officials in connection with the incident with opposition figure Alexey Navalny, Elena Panina, a member of the Russian lower house's foreign affairs committee, told Sputnik on Thursday, noting that the response should include economic measures

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th October, 2020) Russia needs to respond to the European Union's sanctions introduced against Russian officials in connection with the incident with opposition figure Alexey Navalny, Elena Panina, a member of the Russian lower house's foreign affairs committee, told Sputnik on Thursday, noting that the response should include economic measures.

Earlier in the day, the EU officially introduced the Russian sanctions related to Navalny's poisoning. In particular, the sanctions target Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the Russian Federal Security Service; the first deputy head of the presidential administration, Sergey Kiriyenko; and four other high-ranking officials.

"Russia must retaliate to this demarche," Panina said, adding that the response does not have to be political.

According to the lawmaker, such measures will not be successful since Western countries no more understand the significance of diplomatic measures.

"Therefore, the response should probably be asymmetrical. It is better to be in the economic sphere. Life has shown the effectiveness of Russian counter-sanctions concerning EU agricultural products. Apparently, we should think about finding other vulnerabilities," Panina added.

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 found no traces of poisons in his samples and suggested he could have suffered an abrupt drop of glucose in his blood due to a metabolic disbalance, 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.