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

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

Those EU officials targeted are held “responsible for promoting anti-Russian sanctions initiatives within framework of 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 EU that initiated sanctions on Russian officials have failed to provide any evidence on case, both to Russian authorities, despite latters' repeated requests, and to ir own EU partners. 

Moscow accused EU of acting in a “hasty and secretive manner” and taking a confrontational political decision that not only violated UN Security Council's international legal prerogatives, but also Helsinki principles of non-intervention in internal affairs, said Moscow. Such a move hampered 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 h barred four senior Russian officials over jailing of opposition leer Alexei Navalny for ir alleged roles in arrest of Kremlin critic. EU accused Russia of violating democratic principles for a political crackdown on protesting civilians. four officials named by EU were He of investigations Alexander Bastrykin, prosecutor general Igor Krasnov, he of national guard Viktor Zolotov and he of federal prison services Alexander Kalashnikov, all of whom have remained banned from travelling to EU states, and all ir assets in Europe are frozen.