The United States on Friday sanctioned six Russian individuals “connected to human rights abuses”. Calling for the release of Russian journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Kremlin will “not succeed in hiding the truth about the Ukraine war”.
Vladimir Kara-Murza, is regarded as a prominent pro-democracy and human rights activist and staunch Kremlin critic. He has been locked up in a Moscow prison since April 2022 for speaking out against Russia’s war in Ukraine. The Russian government later allegedly prosecuted him under politically motivated charges. The activist-cum-journalist now faces more than 30 years in prison.
“Today we sanctioned Russians connected to human rights abuses. The Kremlin’s attempts to silence critics like Vladimir Kara-Murza will not succeed in hiding the truth about its war in Ukraine. We call for the immediate release of Vladimir and other prisoners of conscience,” Blinken said.
In a statement Blinken said, “The Department of the Treasury is designating three Russian nationals, Andrei Andreevich Zadachin, Elena Anatolievna Lenskaya, and Danila Yurievich Mikheev, due to their involvement in serious human rights abuse.”
“Zadachin is a Special Investigator assigned to the Chief Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation who ordered that a criminal case be initiated against Kara-Murza based on his expression of anti-warviews. Lenskaya is a judge of the Basmanny District Court in Moscow who oversaw Kara-Murza’s pre-trial detention hearing and ordered he be held in pre-trial detention on charges based on his exercise of the right to freedom of expression. Mikheev is being designated for providing support for serious human rights abuse, namely by serving as an expert witness on behalf of the Russian government in the hearing that resulted in Kara-Murza’s arbitrary detention,” the statement explained.
The other sanctioned individuals are Russian government officials Oleg Mikhailovich Sviridenko, Diana Igorevna Mishchenko, and Ilya Pavlovich Kozlov. Sviridenko is the Russian Deputy Minister of Justice who oversaw the prosecution in the case under which Kara-Murza was prosecuted. Mishchenko is the judge who handed out the initial order for Kara-Murza’s arrest, sentencing him to 15 days in prsion. Kozlov is the judge who denied Kara-Murza’s appeal of Mishchenko’s administrative arrest ruling.