The United Kingdom on Monday imposed asset freezes and travel bans on seven Russian individuals and two state research institutes, accusing them of developing the chemical weapons used in the 2018 Salisbury attack and the 2024 poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The Foreign Office said the targeted entities and individuals were directly involved in the creation of the Novichok nerve agent and the epibatidine toxin. The announcement came on the eve of a NATO summit in Ankara, where the alliance’s response to Russia’s military posture is expected to dominate the agenda.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper described Russia’s repeated use of chemical weapons as a “sickening violation of international law” and a direct threat to global security. The sanctioned institutes are SC Signal, a state scientific research centre, and GNIII VM, the military medicine research and testing institute. Among the individuals are directors and senior scientists, including Andrei Antokhin and Viktor Taranchenko, who the UK says conducted research on Novichok, and Vladimir Kondratyev, a co-author of a paper on the toxic qualities of epibatidine. The British government linked these substances to the near-fatal poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, which later caused the death of Dawn Sturgess, and to the death of Navalny in an Arctic penal colony.

Moscow has consistently denied any role in the poisonings, dismissing the allegations as anti-Russian propaganda. The Russian embassy in London did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The European Union last week imposed its own sanctions on six Russians for involvement in developing epibatidine, though the names differ from the British list. Viewed from Brussels, the coordinated measures signal a Western effort to hold Russia accountable for chemical weapons use, a concern that has grown since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The sanctions are part of a wider pattern: London has now sanctioned more than 3,400 individuals and entities in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine. The announcement came as the UK defence ministry separately reported an “unsafe and unprofessional” approach by a Russian maritime patrol aircraft to the HMS Prince of Wales carrier strike group in the Norwegian Sea, underscoring the persistent military friction between Russia and NATO members. The NATO summit in Ankara is expected to address both the chemical weapons dossier and the alliance’s posture towards Moscow, with further coordinated measures likely to be discussed.