Alexei Navalny: UK government under fire for ‘pathetic’ response to Putin critic’s death
A senior Tory MP has called on the government to go “a lot further” in punishing Putin today after ministers sanctioned prison officers at the Artic jail where Alexei Navalny was killed.
Pressure has been growing on Westminster for a response after fierce Putin critic Navalny was pronounced dead on Friday while serving a 29-year prison term.
In a statement today, the Foreign Office said it had now sanctioned six individuals in response to the killing, including the “heads of the Arctic penal colony where Alexei Navalny was killed.”
“Those responsible for Navalny’s brutal treatment should be under no illusion – we will hold them accountable,” said the foreign minister Lord Cameron in a statement.
However, the response has been criticised across Westminster today as not going far enough.
“We need to further than this. A lot further,” the influential chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Alicia Kearns, wrote in a tweet.
Labour MP Angela Eagle described the sanctions as a “pretty laughable tiny response” to Nalvalny’s death.
The Scottish National Party MP Stewart McDonal described the measures as “pathetic.”
The response comes after Morning Wire reported this week that the government was still yet to sanction six of Navalny’s top targets which he laid out when returning to Russia in 2021.
The fierce Putin critic, who died in prison last week, identified a group of 35 Russian “human rights abusers, kleptocrats, and propagandists” to be penalised by the West as he returned to Moscow in 2021 after recovering from novichok poisoning in Germany.
Among those still yet to face any UK sanctions are Russian health minister Mikhail Murashko, who Navalny accused of “covering up” his poisoning and frustrating his exit to Germany.