The Council of the European Union imposed sanctions against eight alleged participants in the poisoning of politician Alexei Navalny with Novichok in August 2020. The publication in the Official Journal of the European Union was noted by the opposition leader's associates.

The following people were subject to European sanctions for using chemical weapons: Alexey Alexandrov (“Frolov”), Vladimir Panyaev (“Alekseev”), Ivan Osipov (“Spiridonov”), Konstantin Kudryavtsev (“Sokolov”), Stanislav Makshakov, Vladimir Bogdanov, whom The Insider and Bellingcat named as employees of the FSB special group.

In addition, the restrictions affected Kirill Vasiliev and Artur Zhirov, who, according to investigators, were the director of the FSB Institute of Forensic Science and the head of the Signal scientific center, which participated in the development of toxic substances from the Novichok group.

On August 20, 2020, Alexei Navalny fell ill on a Tomsk-Moscow flight. The politician was taken to a hospital in Omsk, from where he was evacuated to Germany in a coma two days later. He spent a month in a Berlin clinic. The German government said he was poisoned with a substance from the Novichok group. Russia denies involvement in the poisoning.
In December 2020, The Insider and Bellingcat released an investigation that claimed Navalny had been poisoned by members of a special FSB group. Navalny later called one of them, who effectively admitted his involvement in the operation.

The European Union has imposed sanctions against those allegedly involved in the poisoning of Alexei Navalny