On Friday, 3 July, the Council of the EU decided to impose restrictive measures on six Russian nationals involved in developing chemical weapons, notably epibatidine. This toxin was found in samples taken from Alexei Navalny’s body after his death.
The individuals targeted today are scientists and researchers in the military sector. One of those concerned is Igor Babkin, the head of the laboratory at SC Signal—“where [some of them] researched and published articles on the synthesis of epibatidine, thereby being involved in its development as a chemical weapon”. Scientist Sergey Galan and researchers Olga Yudina and Aleksey Aksyonov from SC Signal are also subject to measures.
Irina Derevyagina, a chemical research analyst at the State Scientific Research Institute for Organic Chemistry and Technology (GosNIIOKhT)—an institute that is “a central part” of the Russian chemical weapons programme—and Mikhail Gutsalyuk, the head of the department responsible for organising scientific work and training scientific and pedagogical staff at the Military Academy for Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defence, are being sanctioned.
EU sanctions against the use and proliferation of chemical weapons apply to 31 people and six entities.
See the legal act: https://aeur.eu/f/mq2 (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)