Biden admin imposes sanctions and visa restrictions on four Russian operatives tied to Navalny poisoning

By Jennifer Hansler, CNN

(CNN) — 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.

Alexey Alexandrov, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, Ivan Osipov, and Vladimir Panyaev were 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. All four had already been sanctioned under a different authority in August 2021.

The State Department 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,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Thursday.

CNN has done extensive reporting on the team involved in Navalny’s poisoning – including the four men sanctioned on Thursday.

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.

A joint CNN-Bellingcat investigation identified Alexandrov as one of the toxins team whose cell phone pinged just a few blocks where the Navalny team was staying on the night that the nerve agent got into Navalny’s hotel room.

As CNN reported in December 2020, Kudryavtsev, in a stunning sting operation by Navalny himself, provided a detailed account of how the nerve agent was applied to a pair of Navalny’s underpants. Kudryavtsev also acknowledged knowing Alexandrov and praised his work.

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.” He is already serving sentences totaling 11-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,” according to the State Department.

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CNN’s Tim Lister, Clarissa Ward and Sebastian Shukla contributed to this report.