Alexei Navalny in a message from prison: The West must fight corruption

Navalny, 45, asserted in a text he wrote in a prison cell that corruption is not only an internal problem in countries such as Russia, Eritrea, Burma and Venezuela, but that it is “always one of the main causes of global corruption and challenges facing the West.”

The article appeared on the Euronews website. Navalny laments that most leaders view corruption as a “minor” element, while blaming it for the failures of their “predecessors, or more often, their predecessors.” He called on the West to take “realistic and easy-to-implement steps” to fight corruption.

He pointed out that such measures include “creating a special category of countries that encourage corruption”, where public sanctions can be imposed on them, and “enforcing transparency” by publishing any agreements between Western companies and their partners from countries at risk of corruption, if these are related to the agreements. In any way, the state, its officials or their relatives.

In August last year, Navalny in Siberia fell victim to an attempted poisoning with the military chemical Novichok. He was treated in a clinic in Germany, where his life was saved. After returning to the country, the opponent remained in January of this year. He was arrested and then imprisoned in a criminal colony, where he is serving a sentence of about 2.5 years.

On Friday, the United States also returned to the issue of dissidents. They imposed sanctions on nine individuals and four chemical weapons research institutions. On the American list of sanctioned persons: Alexei Alexandrov, Vladimir Panaev, Ivan Osipov, Vladimir Bogdanov, Kirill Vasiliev, Stanislav Makshkov, Alexei Sedov, Konstantin Koryatsev and Artur Zhirov.

They were all FSB officers and were directly or indirectly involved in the attempt to poison Navalny. US sanctions also apply to the FSB Institute of Forensic Medicine, which employed most of those involved in the attack on Navalny, the State Institute of Experimental Military Medicine, and two institutes dealing with chemical weapons.