The European Union sanctioned on Monday the heads of Russia’s military intelligence and two of their officers blamed for poisoning a former Russian double agent in Britain last year, a decision Moscow dismissed as groundless.
BRUSSELS/MOSCOW (Reuters) – The European Union sanctioned on Monday the heads of Russia’s military intelligence and two of their officers blamed for poisoning a former Russian double agent in Britain last year, a decision Moscow dismissed as groundless.
The EU travel bans and asset freezes included two men Britain has named as intelligence officers Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov and accused of attempting to murder Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
The men have denied any involvement in the spraying of a chemical weapon on Skripal’s front door in the English city of Salisbury in March.
In a case that has widened the diplomatic gulf between Russia and the West in recent years, the European bloc also sanctioned the head and deputy head of Russia’s military intelligence agency (GRU), Igor Olegovich Kostyukov and Vladimir Stepanovich Alexseyev.
