Washington DC [US], August 18 (ANI): The Biden administration on Thursday imposed sanctions and visa restrictions on four Russian operatives involved in the 2020 poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, CNN reported.

The four operatives sanctioned by Washington are namely; Alexey Alexandrov, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, Ivan Osipov, and Vladimir Panyaev.

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They have been sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act “for having acted as agents of or on behalf of a person in a matter relating to extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights committed against individuals seeking to expose illegal activity carried out by officials of the Government of the Russian Federation,” according to the US Treasury Department.

Notably, all four had already been sanctioned under a different authority in August 2021.

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The State Department has imposed visa sanctions on the four, blocking them and their immediate family members from entry to the United States.

“Today’s actions are a reminder that there are consequences for violating internationally recognized human rights. The United States will continue to use the authorities at our disposal to promote accountability for such egregious acts,” CNN quoted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as saying.

In August 2020, Navalny collapsed on a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow after being poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok. He was medically evacuated to Berlin and treated in the German capital before returning to Russia in January 2021. He has been incarcerated there since, CNN reported.

According to the US Treasury Department, “Kudryavtsev also reportedly was involved in surveillance of Russian opposition politician and Putin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza,” who was detained in April 2022 and has been sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Earlier this month, Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in prison on extremism charges, which the State Department condemned as “an unjust conclusion to an unjust trial.”

Navalny is already serving sentences totalling eleven-and-a-half years in a maximum security facility, where “Russian authorities have repeatedly sent Navalny to solitary confinement, infringed upon his access to counsel, and denied him medical care,” CNN reported citing the State Department. (ANI)

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