On Monday 21 January, the Foreign Affairs Council sanctioned the Head of the GRU (also known as the G.U., or the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces), Igor Olegovich Kostyukov, his first Deputy, Vladimir Stepanovich Alekseyev, and the two ‘tourists' in the Skripal case, Anatoliy Chepiga, alias Ruslan Boshirov, and Alexander Mishkin, alias Alexander Petrov (see EUROPE 12173). The latter, suspected of having poisoned the former spy Skripal and his daughter, deny the facts, calling themselves mere tourists.
According to the Council, these four men are responsible for the possession, transport and use of a toxic nerve agent "Novitchok” on the weekend of 4 March 2018 in Salisbury.
The Council also imposed sanctions on the Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC) responsible for the development and production of chemical weapons in Syria, as well as five Syrian officials directly involved in the SSRC’s activities.
These nine persons and one entity are the first to be included under the new regime of restrictive measures against the use and proliferation of chemical weapons created on 15 October 2018 (see EUROPE 12117). They are subject to a travel ban and their assets are frozen in the EU. EU persons and entities are also forbidden from making funds available to those listed.
The legal acts related to these sanctions were published on 21 January.
The SSRC had already been subject to sanctions under the Syria sanctions regime since December 2011 (see EUROPE 10508). (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)