Europe

Home page

Europe

EU imposes sanctions on Russian investigator harassing Crimean Tatars

12 October 2021 01:30 (UTC +04:00)

The EU imposed on Monday sanctions over the violation of Ukraine’s territory against eight more people, including a high-ranking officer who conducted “politically motivated criminal investigations against” Crimean Tatars, APA reports citing Anadolu.

The new individuals have to face restrictive measures “for actively supporting actions and implementing policies that undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine,” the EU Council said in a statement.

Sevastopol city’s special cases investigator Magomed Farmanovich Magomedov was also added to the EU blacklist.

According to the EU decision, he was “involved in politically motivated criminal investigations against the leaders of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People prosecuted for their active opposition to the illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.”

The sanctions list involves in total 185 people and 48 entities, and the targeted individuals are not allowed to travel to the EU.

The bloc also prohibits EU actors to make funds available for blacklisted people and entities, and imposes a freeze on their assets.

Last month, the EU condemned detention of five Crimean Tatar leaders and another 50 people, including prominent intellectual Nariman Dzhelyal.

The bloc has been applying restrictive measures in response to the Ukrainian crisis since 2014.

Russian forces entered the Crimean Peninsula in February 2014 with Russian President Vladimir Putin formally dividing the region into two separate federal subjects of the Russian Federation the following month.

Turkey and the US, as well as the UN General Assembly, view the annexation as illegal.

Separate economic sanctions on the Russian finance, energy, and defense sectors are also in place because of Moscow’s reluctance to fully implement the Minsk agreement meant to establish a cease-fire in eastern Ukraine.

The bloc also applies a sanctions regime over the illegal annexation of Crimea and the port of Sevastopol.