EU adds six individuals to Annex I chemical-weapons sanctions over Navalny poisoning
EU sanctions-screening and compliance teams must add the six newly listed individuals to denied-party filters and freeze funds and economic resources on any match
Change
On 3 July 2026 the Council of the European Union adopted Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1541, adding six individuals — Igor Babkin, Sergey Galan, Irina Derevyagina, Mikhail Gutsalyuk, Olga Yudina and Aleksey Aksyonov, all connected to research on epibatidine linked to Alexei Navalny's death — to Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2018/1542 on restrictive measures against the proliferation and use of chemical weapons, effective on publication and directly applicable in all Member States.
Why it matters
The six named persons are now subject to the asset-freeze and related restrictive measures of Regulation (EU) 2018/1542, directly binding on all EU persons and entities. The listing records each individual's association with the Signal Scientific Centre (SC Signal, INN 7718813855) and its director Artur Aleksandrovich Zhirov, and cites links to GosNIIOKhT, the Military Academy for Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defence, and the Research Institute for Applied Acoustics — relevant for ownership-and-control and associated-entity screening. As an EU Regulation (rather than only the parallel CFSP Decision), it creates immediate, self-executing obligations on financial institutions and firms to screen, freeze and refrain from making funds or economic resources available to the listed persons.
Implications
- — EU financial institutions' sanctions-screening teams must add Igor Babkin, Sergey Galan, Irina Derevyagina, Mikhail Gutsalyuk, Olga Yudina and Aleksey Aksyonov to denied-party filters and freeze any matched funds and economic resources, and refrain from making funds available to them — the Regulation is directly applicable from 3 July 2026 and breach exposes the institution to enforcement under national implementing penalties.
- — Compliance teams must apply ownership-and-control and associated-entity logic to the Signal Scientific Centre (SC Signal, INN 7718813855) and its director Artur Aleksandrovich Zhirov, screening for exposure routed through the listed persons' affiliations even though the entity itself is named as an association rather than a separate listing.
- — Firms in the chemical, defence, research and adjacent sectors, and their trade-finance and export functions, must screen counterparties, contracts and shipments against the six new names and suspend or refuse engagements where a match to a listed person appears — continued performance risks breach of the directly applicable EU restrictive measures.
Who is affected
- — EU financial institutions' sanctions-screening teams
- — Compliance teams applying ownership-and-control screening at EU-regulated entities
- — Chemical, defence, research and trade-finance firms exposed to the listed persons or their affiliations
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