On Monday 16 December, the Council of the European Union decided to impose restrictive measures against 16 individuals and three entities responsible for Russia’s destabilising actions abroad, as part of its new sanctions regime adopted on 8 October (see EUROPE 13499/26).
The EU is thus sanctioning GRU unit 29155, a “covert unit within the Russian military intelligence agency” (GRU), known for its involvement in foreign assassinations and destabilisation activities, as well as some of its military personnel active in Ukraine, Western Europe and Africa and its commander, Andrei Vladimirovich Averyanov.
The Groupe Panafricain pour le Commerce et l’Investissement (GPCI), a disinformation network conducting clandestine pro-Russian influence operations, and its founder, Harouna Douamba, are also subject to measures. The same applies to the African Initiative press agency, which is involved in disseminating Russian propaganda and disinformation against the West. Its editor-in-chief, Artem Kureev, who is also an officer in the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), has been sanctioned, as have Sofia Zakharova, head of the department of the Russian President’s Office for the Development of Information and Communication Technologies and Communication Infrastructures, and Nikolai Tupikin, director and founder of GK Struktura. Members of the GRU will also be subject to the sanctions.
Vladimir Sergiyenko, former parliamentary assistant to German MP Eugen Schmidt, who actively collaborated with Russian intelligence agents, Russian entrepreneur Visa Mizaev and his business partner and wife, Olga Alekseevna Belyavtseva, who played a key role in a Russian intelligence operation against the German Federal Intelligence Service, are also subject to measures.
Finally, the Council is targeting Alesya Miloradovich, a Russian government employee in France, and Anatolii Prizenko, a Moldovan businessman who coordinated sending several Moldovan citizens to France in October 2023, where they painted Stars of David in the streets.
To see the legal act, go to https://aeur.eu/f/eu3 (Original version Camille-Cerise Gessant)