Following the death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, the UK has been the first country to sanction those in charge of the penal colony in which he was held. 

Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition figure in recent times is reported to have died last Friday 16th February. He died in the infamous FKU IK-3 ‘Polar Wolf’ prison camp. Britain leads the charge in inflicting consequences on Russia, with the general consensus in the West being that responsibility for the activist’s death lies in the hands of the Russian authorities, 

The UK sanctions, targeting six members of the prison camp’s leadership, prohibits them from travelling to the UK and have also frozen their assets. According to the Foreign Office, the UK is the first country to deploy sanctions over the death of Navalny. Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron, when announcing the sanctions, declared that the prison chiefs ‘should be under no illusion – we will hold them accountable.’ 

The Independent reports that sanctions have been imposed upon the penal colony’s head, Colonel Vadim Konstantinovich Kalinin, and his deputies Sergey Nikolaevich Korzhov, Vasily Alexandrovich Vydrin, Vladimir Ivanovich Pilipchik, Aleksandr Vladimirovich Golyakov, and Aleksandr Valerievich Obraztsov. 

Navalny, who is considered a terrorist and ‘foreign agent’ in the eyes of the Russian state, was serving a 19-year sentence for his anti-Kremlin activism. He was poisoned with Novichok in 2020 by FSB agents (Russia’s state security service) and moved to the brutal Siberian penal colony ‘Polar Wolf’ last year. 

According to the Russian prison service, Navalny died last Friday, collapsing after taking a walk. 

The Foreign Secretary has stated that ‘the Russian authorities saw Navalny as a threat and they tried repeatedly to silence him’ and that ‘no one should doubt the oppressive nature of the Russian system’. 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak echoed this in the House of Commons, declaring that Navalny ‘died for a cause to which he dedicated his whole life, freedom’. He then added ‘together with our allies, we are considering all options to hold Russia and Putin to account and this morning, we sanctioned those running the prison where Alexei Navalny’s body still lies.’ 

This Wednesday and Thursday, at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Lord Cameron took the opportunity to accuse the Kremlin of Navalny’s death. The Independent reports that when he  told Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to his face ‘you murdered Navalny’, the latter showed no interest, looking down at his phone. 

Despite these sanctions and criticisms, Conservative MP Alicia Kearns, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee has stated that the UK’s response must ‘go a lot further’. Previous sanctions issued against the Kremlin, although doing some damage to Putin’s Russia, have not had the desired impact. Hence, Banning these prison chiefs from entering the UK might not be enough.

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