European Council approves sanctions against 11 people, including Russians and Chinese

Foreign Ministers of the 27 European Union members have approved new sanctions against 11 natural persons, including from Russia and China, who the union believes to be complicit in human rights violations, a source in one of the delegations to the European Council told TASS Monday.

"The blacklist has been approved. It includes 11 people, including citizens of Russia, China and Libya," the source noted.

According to the diplomat, the names of the sanctioned people will soon be published in the EU official journal. They will all be banned from entering the EU, while their back assets in EU member states will be frozen.

Earlier, top EU diplomat Josep Borrell arrived at the European Council meeting in Brussels and informed that the union will trigger the European sanction regime against people deemed responsible for human rights abuses. Sources previously mentioned the intention to impose more sanction, but it was announced officially for the first time.

The new blacklist under the human rights sanction regime was approved on March 17 by the member state ambassadors, a source in one of the delegations earlier told TASS.

On March 2, Brussels triggered the human rights sanction mechanism for the first time, sanctioning four Russian citizens, such as Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, head of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Federal Penitentiary Service Alexander Kalashnikov and head of the Russian National Guard Viktor Zolotov. The EU believes them all to be responsible for the guilty verdict of Russian blogger Alexey Navalny.