Alexei Navalny says he was put in the dock on politically motivated charges. [Source: BBC]
The US has imposed sanctions on senior Russian officials over the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
The measures, which target Russia’s top spy and six others, are being co-ordinated with similar moves by the European Union.
US officials said intelligence had concluded that the Moscow government was behind the near-fatal nerve agent attack on Navalny last year.
He is the most high-profile critic of President Vladimir Putin.
Moscow denies involvement in his poisoning and disputes the conclusion, by Western weapons experts, that Navalny was poisoned with a Novichok agent during a flight in Siberia.
The term Novichok – “newcomer” in Russian – applies to a group of nerve agents developed in a lab by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. They paralyse muscles and can lead to death by asphyxiation.
