The European Union is punishing six Russians and a Russian organization for their part in the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Their European assets are frozen, and the six will no longer enter the EU, say insider diplomats.
Russia denies it has anything to do with the Navalny assassination attempt. But the use of a Novichok nerve poison, to which only Russian security services have access, cannot have gone outside of Russia, the EU thinks.
Navalny became very ill during a flight in Russia in August. He was eventually allowed to go to Germany to be treated there.
There, experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), among others, established that the politician had been poisoned with a prohibited nerve poison.
Insiders have previously expressed the expectation that the measures will affect officials of the Russian military intelligence service GROe.