European Union foreign ministers on Monday agreed new sanctions on Russia in response to the death of opposition politician Alexei Navalny, EU diplomats told dpa.
The sanctions concern people from the Russian judicial system, officials said. More details are expected to be announced in the coming days, and while ministers have endorsed the sanctions in principle, a binding legal decision is still to be made.
In a press conference after the foreign ministers' meeting, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said the sanctions target 30 individuals and organizations "responsible for the murder of Alexei Navalny."
The move follows the choreographed re-election of Russian president Vladimir Putin over the weekend. The election was overshadowed by Navalny's death in a Siberian prison camp in February.
Ministers also signed off on a new funding mechanism for military aid to Ukraine, which was agreed by senior diplomats on Wednesday. The Ukraine Assistance Fund aims to provide €5 billion ($5.4 billion) of joint support from the European Union and its member states, under an existing system called the European Peace Facility.
They also discussed potentially using the proceeds of frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine, Borrell said.
In advance of the sanctions agreement on Monday, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell issued a statement on behalf of the whole bloc saying that "the shocking death of opposition politician Alexei Navalny in the run up to the elections is yet another sign of the accelerating and systematic repression" in Russia.
The EU statement on Monday condemned the holding of "so-called 'elections'" in occupied territories in Ukraine.
"The European Union strongly condemns the illegal holding of so-called 'elections' in the territories of Ukraine that Russia has temporarily occupied," the statement said, referring to the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, annexed by Moscow in violation of international law back in 2014, as well as the mainland regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson.
At the press conference following the meeting on Monday, Borrell said "there's a clear difference between holding elections in someone else's house and doing them in our own." Borrell added that "not only are these elections fake," holding them in occupied territory deserves "double condemnation."
In its written statement earlier in the day, the EU said: "The European Union reiterates that it does not and will never recognize either the holding of these so-called 'elections' in the territories of Ukraine or their results," said the EU's statement.
It said the elections "are null and void and cannot produce any legal effect whatsoever."
Ahead of the foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels on Monday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters that the Russian poll "was an election without a choice."
Striking an ironic note, European Council President and former Belgian prime minister Charles Michel sardonically congratulated Putin as polls opened on Friday, before votes had been cast.
"Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today," Michel said on X, formerly known as Twitter. "No opposition. No freedom. No choice," Michel added.
