The European Commission is drawing up further sanctions against Russia in response to the death of Alexei Navalny, Mairead McGuinness has said. 

The Russian opposition politician and prominent Putin critic died suddenly in a penal colony last week at the age of 47.

His widow, Yulia Navalnay, has accused the Russian President of killing her husband.

Speaking to Breakfast Business with Joe Lynam, Commissioner McGuinness said the European Union’s response would go beyond condemnatory words.

“Indeed, we have another package coming forward to address what happened to that freedom fighter Alexei Navalny - whose life was taken because he stood for freedom,” she said.

“We will have to address that in the upcoming sanctions package.”

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. (Moscow City Court via AP)

In the wake of the invasion of Ukraine two years ago this month, the European Union imposed a number of sanctions on Russia, designed to curtail trade with the country.

Between February 2022 and September 2023, trade between Russia and the EU has fallen by 81% and Commissioner McGuinness described sanctions as “really hitting them hard”.

Despite this, some companies are continuing to trade with Russia by exporting their products through third countries that have not imposed sanctions on Moscow.

It is a problem the European Commission is aware of.

“There is a route, I suppose, that has developed, an indirect route for some of these technologies to make it through to Russia,” Commissioner McGuinness said.

“We have the data; I had a meeting with all of the member states very recently and we spent a day going through the good that’s been done - because member states are doing a great job in most cases.

“We now need to focus on specific entities in the European Union who are manufacturing these goods.”

Vladimir Putin.

Commissioner McGuiness said circumvention of the sanctions through trade with third countries is not allowed and the EU plans to take a more proactive approach to the practice.

“We will need to step up on due diligence with these companies and we also have our Special Sanctions Envoy David O’Sullivan who is working at the diplomatic level with those countries,” she said.

“[His job] is to make [companies] aware that they are facilitating this illegal invasion of Ukraine by their actions.”

US intelligence estimates that since the invasion of Ukraine, some 315,000 Russian soldiers have died on the battlefield.

Main image: Alexei Navalny. Picture by: Alamy.com