Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny called for sanctions on Russian oligarchs supporting President Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian rule on Friday, Nov. 27 . In a video call alongside fellow Opposition Leader Vladamir Kara-Murza, former Deputy Energy Minister Vladimir Milov, and opposition activist Ilya Yashin, Navalny asked the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs to target Russia’s political elite instead of going after mid-level Russian politicians.
Navalny, who recently survived a poisoning attempt allegedly carried out by the Kremlin, called on the West to help topple Russia’s authoritarian regime. While, in the past, he has notably avoided interacting with Western political leaders and even limited public conversations in English, the opposition leader now finds less to lose in seeking Western assistance to establish a more democratic political system in his country.
He suggested that if European politicians would like their sanctions to be taken seriously, they should “target Russian oligarchs’” and tell them: “You are all of the time advocating that Europe is something bad. So please, take your yachts and get them somewhere to the nice harbours of Belarus Republic.”
Navalny mentioned that billionaires like Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich and Arsenal Football Club shareholder Alisher Usmanov have assets in Europe and travel abroad; targeting their vested interest could be a better strategy to curb authoritarian rule than what has been done in the past: directly placing sanctions on the Kremlin. Navalny further illustrated how European politicians are hypocritical by publically sanctioning the Kremlin but simultaneously enriching themselves by taking money from people like Abramovich in exchange for permission to dock boats on the shores of Monaco and Barcelona.
In addition to sanctions on the Russian oligarchy, Navalny recommended that Europe reject Russia’s parliamentary elections next year if opposition parties are not allowed to participate, as has been the case in the past. To allay concerns about the Russian public assuming Europe is sanctioning the country and not oligarchs, Navalny assured those present at the hearing that 99% of Russians would support sanctions on oligarchs.
Kara-Murza, who has been poisoned twice, said that while the Russian people will themselves work to change the current kleptocratic system, and the West should not work to replace the current regime, Europe should “practice what it preaches.” It should “not enable and support in effect the corrupt, kleptocratic and authoritarian regime of Vladimir Putin by allowing his cronies and his oligarchs to use states of the European Union essentially as havens for the money that they are looting from the people of Russia.”
Estonian Member of the European Parliament and Vice-Chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Urmas Paet, pointed out the Kremlin’s past attempts to crush political opposition and its involvement in the recent Belarusian and Ukrainian crisis. Paet emphasized that the EU must ‘reassess’ its relations with Putin’s Russia and support Russian citizens in their fight for democracy.
The EU’s past attempts at sanctioning Russia have been effective only to a limited extent. Should EU leaders find ways to curb the Kremlin’s attempts at meddling with internal and external elections, authoritarianism in Russia could be reduced. Opposition leader Navalny’s proposition to target Russian oligarchs seems to be a new if not unique step in this direction.
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