Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg called on the EU to continue its dialogue with Russia despite the situation with Alexei Navalny (founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation – FBK, included by the Ministry of Justice in the register of organizations performing the functions of a foreign agent). He stated this on the air of radio station Ö1, quoted by RIA Novosti.
According to the diplomat, the construction of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline should not be linked to this situation either. “It serves the security of the EU’s energy supply. Russia is a very important partner in the issue of energy and security on the European continent, it was in the past decades and will remain so in the future,” Schallenberg admitted.
At the same time, he stressed that in matters concerning Navalny, democracy or peaceful assemblies, European countries should show a clear position. For this reason, we are talking about targeted sanctions, the minister concluded.
On Tuesday, February 2, the Simonovsky Court of Moscow replaced Alexei Navalny’s suspended sentence with a real one. He was sentenced to 3.5 years in a general regime colony. However, Navalny will spend 2 years and 8 months in the colony, taking into account the time spent under house arrest during the preliminary investigation in the Yves Rocher case.
About 20 employees of the embassies of foreign states, including the USA, Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia, Austria, Switzerland, arrived at the court session.
Navalny was detained on January 17 at the Moscow Sheremetyevo airport upon his return from Germany, where he was undergoing treatment. Navalny fell into a coma on August 20, he became ill during the flight from Tomsk to Moscow. On August 22, he was taken to a German clinic, whose doctors announced that the Russian was poisoned with a substance from the Novichok group. Russian doctors found no traces of the poison.