Authorities in Moscow have put opposition activist Alexei Navalny, who has been poisoned and is currently in jail, on a list of the country's terrorist organizations, in a further persecution move by President Vladimir Putin to silence his critics.
Nabalani's eight senior aides (45) were also blacklisted tonight (Tuesday), including Lyubov Sobol and Georgi Alborov, and their bank accounts will be frozen.
Sobol, a local politician and a member of Navalny's team, believes the Kremlin is behind the decision.
In an interview with the AFP news agency, she said: "There is no doubt that the decision regarding me, regarding a villain and my associates and colleagues, was made in the Kremlin with a personal donation from Vladimir Putin. I believe that all matters related to our team are under special control.
EU spokesman Peter Stano said in response: "This is not acceptable. We see this as a continuing repression against the critical voices in Russian society."
Lyubov Sobol,
Nabalani, a lawyer by profession and one of Putin's most prominent opponents, was arrested in February last year while landing in Moscow after returning from Germany following an assassination attempt by alleged Russian intelligence agents, using the "Novichuk" nerve gas.
He was later sentenced and imprisoned for two and a half years for violating the terms of his imprisonment from a previous trial from 2014.
His arrest sparked waves of protest not seen in the country for years.
The new move against opposition figures is being made by the Federal Service for Financial Control (Rosfinmonitoring), a government unit that specializes in tracking economic crimes and money laundering.
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