Russia bars eight EU officials from entry country in tit-for-tat move over Navalny case

Russia has banned at least eight European officials from entering the country in response to EU sanctions against the Russian security officials over the jailing of Putin’s main opposition rival and Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. “The European Union continues its policy of unilateral illegitimate restrictive measures targeting Russian citizens and organizations," the ministry said in a statement. Foreign Ministry in Moscow "decided to expand the list of representatives of EU member states and institutions who will be denied entry to the Russian Federation," it added. 

Among the banned officials are Vera Jourova, vice president for values and transparency at the executive European Commission, and David Sassoli, the president of the European parliament. Moscow iterated that the sanctions were in response to the EU’s blacklisting of four top Russian security officials last month. "Such actions by the European Union leave no doubt that their true goal is to restrain the development of our country at any cost," Russia’s foreign ministry statement read on Friday.

Those EU officials targeted are held “responsible for promoting anti-Russian sanctions initiatives within the framework of the European Union,” said Russian foreign ministry in a statement on Friday. 

EU acted in a 'hasty and secretive manner': Russia

Russian foreign ministry stressed that the EU that initiated sanctions on Russian officials have failed to provide any evidence on the case, both to the Russian authorities, despite the latters' repeated requests, and to their own EU partners. 

Moscow accused the EU of acting in a “hasty and secretive manner” and taking a confrontational political decision that not only violated the UN Security Council's international legal prerogatives, but also the Helsinki principles of non-intervention in the internal affairs, said Moscow. Such a move hampered the cooperation and good-faith fulfillment of obligations under international law. Specific names were selected at random to fit this EU Council decision, Russia said. 

European Union had barred four senior Russian officials over the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny for their alleged roles in the arrest of the Kremlin critic. EU accused Russia of violating democratic principles for a political crackdown on the protesting civilians. The four officials named by EU were Head of investigations Alexander Bastrykin, prosecutor general Igor Krasnov, head of national guard Viktor Zolotov and head of federal prison services Alexander Kalashnikov, all of whom have remained banned from travelling to EU states, and all their assets in Europe are frozen.