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Putin sanctions Sassoli: entry into Russia is banned

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BRUSSELS-MOSCOW – Eight senior European officials, including the president of the European Parliament David Sassoli, were included in the black list of Putin’s Russia, which announced its harsh response to the sanctions launched in March by the EU against six Russian leaders for the case of ‘ jailed opponent Alexei Navalny and for other serious human rights violations. Moscow bans Sassoli and seven other senior European leaders from entering the Russian Federation. These include the Commissioner for Values ​​and Transparency and Vice President of the European Commission, Vera Jourova.

The Russian foreign ministry has accused Europe of having decreed “illegal entry restrictions” on Russian officials, and accused in Brussels of having “contradicted” the UN Charter and the fundamental norms of international law. And yesterday he reacted accordingly.

If the sanctions are a retaliation for the Navalny case, there are, however, other reasons for friction on the Moscow-Brussels axis: such as the confrontation on Ukraine where the EU (together with NATO) have denounced the massive movement of Russian troops on the Donbass line. . The EU does not recognize the annexation of Crimea, carried out in 2014 with a coup d’état, and does not accept a further militarization of the area.

“Apparently, am I not welcome in the Kremlin? I suspected it a bit »commented Sassoli on Twitter. “No sanctions or intimidation will stop me or the European Parliament from defending human rights, freedom and democracy. The threats will not silence us ”, he then continued, quoting Tolstoy“ There is no greatness where there is no truth ”.

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According to Moscow, “the EU continues its policy of illegitimate unilateral restrictive measures against Russian citizens and Russian organizations. These actions – reads a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry – leave no doubt that their real goal is to slow down the development of our country at any cost to launch an open challenge to the independence of the foreign and internal policy of the Russia”.

The bipartisan reaction in Italy and Europe was immediate. Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio heard Sassoli to express “full solidarity” as soon as he heard the news of the sanctions. Messages of the same tenor also arrived from the European Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, who defined the Russian sanctions as “as unjustified as useless”. «My full solidarity with Sassoli, hit by the sanctions of the Russian government. An incomprehensible gesture of hostility, not compatible with the values ​​of European democracy and with the principles of international law “, the Speaker of the Chamber Roberto Fico wrote on Twitter, while the secretary of the Democratic Party, Enrico Letta, spoke of” an act of unprecedented hostility “and assured that the Democratic Party” reacts harshly in defense of European democracy “and continues to” ask even more forcefully for Navalny’s release “. “This action is unacceptable, devoid of any legal justification and completely without foundation. It is addressed directly to the EU, not only to the people concerned, ”said the President of the European Council Charles Michel and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen in a joint statement.

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The new restrictive measures come at a time of particular tension in relations between Russia and the West, which have led to the expulsion of numerous diplomats on both sides. Brussels on 2 March imposed a travel ban and freezing of assets in the EU on four heavyweights of the Russian state system for the incarceration of Putin’s number one rival, Alexey Navalny, and for the repression with truncheons and with thousands of arrests of peaceful demonstrationsiche to request the release of the opponent. On March 22, the EU sanctioned some people held responsible for serious human rights violations, among them two Russians accused of persecuting homosexuals in Chechnya. Moscow has thus responded to these measures. In addition to Sassoli and Jourova, several leaders of the Baltic countries have ended up on the blacklist of the Kremlin, but also the member of the French delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Jacques Maire, the head of the Berlin prosecutor Jorg Raupach, and Asa Scott , who heads the chemical-biological and nuclear safety laboratory of the Swedish Defense Research Institute, i.e. the institute that confirmed the German experts’ conclusions that Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, a neurotoxin believed to be was developed in the Soviet Union at the time of the Cold War.

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