Baltic foreign ministers call on EU to press Russia to release Navalny

  • 2021-01-18
  • LETA/BNS/TBT Staff

VILNIUS – Foreign ministers from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have called on the European Union to press Russia to release Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. 

Gabrielius Landsbergis, Edgars Rinkevics and Urmas Reinsalu "sent a letter to the High Representative Josep Borrell calling on the EU to step up its efforts to pressure Russia to release Alexei Navalny," the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry said in a press release on Monday. 

The ministers also asked "the Foreign Affairs Council to address the issue at the meeting on 25 January and to consider the possibility of introducing restrictive measures," it said.

Navalny was arrested at Moscow’s airport as he returned to Russia from Germany for the first time since he was poisoned with a nerve agent in August and flown to Berlin for treatment.